Apple Computer last night reported a 95% rise in quarterly profits on exploding sales of its iPod music players, and notched over $1 billion in sales through its retail stores.
Apple shares, though, fell in after-hours trading because the group offered a forecast that fell short of Wall Street estimates.
Apple reported net income of $565m, or 65 cents a share, for the first fiscal quarter to December 31, up from $295m a year earlier. The report beat analyst forecasts of a profit of 55 cents per share. Sales rose 64% to $5.75 billion.
Apple's CEO Steve Jobs had disclosed Apple's quarterly revenue result at the Macworld conference in San Francisco earlier this month.
Consumers snapped up 14 million iPod devices during the Christmas quarter, and Apple has now sold more than 40 million since late 2001. The groundbreaking product has transformed Apple from a niche PC maker into the leading purveyor of digital media.
Apple also sold 1.25 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, a figure that was up 20% from the same time last year. Apple is in the process of transitioning its Mac line to Intel processors, and it expects to have all of its PCs running on Intel chips by the end of this year.
'We are thrilled to report the best quarter in Apple's history,' said Jobs. 'Two highlights of an incredible quarter were selling 14 million iPods and getting ready to launch our new Macs with Intel processors five to six months ahead of expectations. We are working on more wonderful products for 2006, and I can't wait to see what our customers think of them,' he added.
Apple issued a second-quarter profit forecast of 38 cents a share on $4.3 billion in revenue. That outlook fell well short of a Wall Street-estimated profit of 48 cents a share on $4.63 billion in sales.
