What can be said about the quarterly results of Apple Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL) is they aren't experiencing any negative effects from the alleged economic slowdown, as their profits exploded by 36 percent to reach $1.05 billion and revenue came in at $7.51 billion.
Last year during the same period Apple generated $5.26 billion in sales and earned $770 million.
Apple typically understates its guidance, and this time it was no different, as they has projected to earn 94 cents a share on $6.8 billion in sales. Even so, they performed far better than expected by any measure.
Macintosh computers again led the way for the company, as they sold 2.29 million units for the quarter ending March 31. During the same period they sold 10.6 million iPods and 1.7 million iPhones. Mac Notebooks were especially strong performers.
One weakness and concern was the pressure on gross margins, which fell to 32.9 percent for the quarter, with expectations coming in at about 35.8 percent.
The reasons given by Apple for the tigher margins were "a price cut on the iPod Shuffle to $49 from $79, a decline in software revenue from its Leopard operating system, and a greater mix of low-profit sales of songs and movies on the iTunes store."
Guidance for the existing quarter, unsurprisingly, came in under analysts' expectations, as Apple estimated profit of $1 a share on $7.2 billion in sales. Analysts project an average estimate of $1.11 a share.
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