Apple's 3Q Profit Beats Estimates 7/14/2004 5:28:00 PM
SAN JOSE, Calif., Jul 14, 2004 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Apple Computer Inc. posted stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit and revenues Wednesday on heavy sales of its computers and portable music players. For the three months ended June 26, Apple said it earned $61 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with $19 million, or 5 cents per share, in the same period last year. Revenues increased 30 percent to $2.01 billion. Excluding an after-tax restructuring charge of $6 million, the company's net profit would have been $67 million, or 17 cents per share. Wall Street analysts were expecting the Cupertino-based company to earn 15 cents per share on sales of $1.94 billion, according to a survey by Thomson First Call. "It was an outstanding quarter - our highest third-quarter revenue in eight years," said Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs. "Our Mac-based revenue grew a healthy 19 percent, and our music-based revenue grew an incredible 162 percent." Apple shipped 876,000 Macintosh computers in the quarter, accounting for 58 percent of the quarter's revenue growth, Apple's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said in an interview. Also, Apple shipped 860,000 iPod portable players, bringing the product's lifetime total to 3.7 million units, Oppenheimer said. Earlier in the week, Apple announced that 100 million songs had been sold at its iTunes Music Store - a milestone that took three months longer than the company had hoped but still a significant benchmark that proved Apple's dominance in the online music market. Apple also announced on July 2 a delay in the release of the next-generation iMac until September. That means Apple will miss the back-to-school rush, a critical sales period for computer makers. Still, Apple officials gave an optimistic outlook Wednesday. For the fourth quarter, the company expects earnings of 16 cents to 17 cents per share on revenue of $2.1 billion, Oppenheimer said. For the fiscal year, the company expects to hit $8 billion in sales, a 29 percent increase from the previous year. Shares of Apple closed Wednesday up 36 cents at $29.58 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. In after-hours trading, the shares were up 67 cents to $30.25. Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved Jeff Slyn, Owner SLYN Systems & Peripherals (502) 426-5469 serving Kentuckiana clients 7 days a week since 1985! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20040714/d78282b4/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 43 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20040714/d78282b4/attachment.gif
