It is getting to sound like a broken record: Apple (AAPL) has again posted record profits and revenue for another consecutive quarter, thanks to huge sales of its iPhone and iPad.
Apple made the announcement Tuesday and said that its revenue for the third quarter of 2011 had spiked 82 percent over the same time last year, hitting $28.57 billion. Profits from last year are up even more – a 120 percent increase year-over-year to $7.79 billion. Both are up from the second quarter, rising from $25 billion in revenue and $6 billion in profit.
Apple is upwardly mobile
Much of that growth is being driven by mobile devices. The company moved 20.34 million iPhones in Q3, that number jumping up 142 percent over this time last year and rising from 18.65 million iPhones sold in Q2. Almost half of Apple’s revenue in the quarter — $13.3 billion – was derived from iPhone sales. As for the iPad, Apple sold 9.25 million of them, which accounts for just about every iPad the company produced in the quarter. Those sales resulted in $6 billion in revenue, or about 21 percent for the quarter.
Apple is also finding big success with the iPhone and iPad both at home and abroad, according to a quote from Ars Technica:
“International sales and developing markets, including a 600 percent increase in China, are also increasingly responsible for Apple’s booming sales, accounting for 46 percent of revenue for the third fiscal quarter of 2011.”
Huge gains are being made not only from Apple’s mobile devices, but by selling those devices in international markets. About 62 percent of Apple’s quarterly revenue now comes from international sales, Ars reports, with about $3.8 billion being attributed to China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Apple also has a big focus on developing and emerging markets. It added 42 new carriers in 15 countries, most of them in China, Latin America and the Middle East.
iPod sales suffer
One interesting piece of information revealed by the report is that Apple may be its own worst enemy. The numbers show that iPod sales fell by about 20 percent – a trend that has been in place since the iPhone 3G hit the market. While Apple noted that most of those iPod sales are iPod touches, which run on Apple’s iOS platform and therefore spread its mobile software’s influence and gather revenue through the iTunes App Store, it only makes sense that the iPhone is pulling sales from iPods because it is so similar a device. While 20 million more people are now iPhone users around the world, once one has an iPhone, there is really no reason to purchase an iPod.
And in personal computers, Apple saw some interesting numbers. Mac sales are ahead of the curve as far as the industry is concerned, increasing by about 14 percent over last year with 3.95 million Macs sold. That’s compared to about 2.6 percent for the entire PC market, according to Apple’s Tim Cook, but it’s slower growth than was expected of Apple, and among the factors Cook points to are potential Mac buyers opting to go with an iPad instead. The post-PC world vision Apple CEO Steve Jobs mentioned at the launch of the iPad 2 in March means Apple’s device continues to sell incredibly well, but at the expense of the computer business – including Apple’s.
Finally, Apple projected less growth than Q3 saw for the fourth quarter of 2011, projecting a report of $25 billion in revenue. Apple expects the decline because of “a future product transition that we are not talking about today.” That sounds like a vague indication of the new iPhone expected to be announced in September.
