Apple Profits Soar on Mac Sales

Apple might have dropped "computer" from its name, but the company is selling more Macintosh computers than ever before.

These days, Apple might be known more for its iPod portable media players and the much-vaunted iPhone—and the company did drop the word "Computer" from its official name earlier this year—but the company’s fourth quarter financial results contain a surprise: the Cupertino company is selling more Macintosh computers than ever before.

According to Apple, the company shipped over 2.1 million Macs during its fourth fiscal quarter of 2007, which represents a startling 34 percent growth in unit shipments compared to the same quarter a year ago. Making the numbers even more astonishing is that this quarter lands before the traditional end-of-year holiday buying season and landed just before the company was due to launch a major new version of its Mac OS X operating system ("Leopard," due later this week). Both these factors are the sorts of things which usually cause folks in the market for a new computer to defer purchases…but instead, they’re snapping up more Macs than ever before.

Overall, Apple posted revenue of $6.22 billion for the quarter, with a net profit of $904 million. The company is operating on a gross margin of 33.6 percent.

Lest Apple fans think the news on Mac sales means iPod numbers are getting soft, think again: the company sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, which represents a 17 percent year-on-year increase in units sold. The company also says it sold 1.1 million iPhones during the quarter, bringing the total number of iPhones sold to almost 1.4 million. Interestingly, in a conference call with analysts, Apple COO Timothy Cook estimated that about 250,000 of the iPhones sold thusfar—that would be almost 20 percen of the iPhones sold to dayte—"were bought with the intention of unlocking."