Apple Computer beat third-quarter expectations last night, crediting its second-highest quarterly earnings on the continued popularity of its iPod music players and growing interest in Macintosh computers.
Apple posted a net quarterly profit of $472m, or 54 cents per share, compared to a profit of $320m, or 37 cents a share, in the same quarter last year. Apple beat analysts' expectations for its third fiscal quarter, which ended on July 1, by 10 cents a share.
The company employs 1,460 in Cork.
'We're very pleased to report the second-highest quarterly sales and earnings in Apple's history, resulting in year-over-year revenue growth of 24% and earnings growth of 48%,' said chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer.
Revenues for the third-quarter of 2006 tallied $3.52 billion, 39% of which came from sales outside of the US, Apple reported.
'We're thrilled with the growth of our Mac business, and especially that over 75% of the Macs sold during the quarter used Intel processors,' said Apple's CEO Steve Jobs. 'In addition, iPod continued to earn a US market share of over 75% and we are extremely excited about future iPod products in our pipeline,' he added.
Apple shipped 1.3 million Macintosh computers and 8.1 million iPods during the quarter, representing 12% growth in Macs and 32% growth in iPods over last year's third quarter, the company said.
Earlier this year Apple completed a switch to Intel processors in its computers and came out with 'Boot Camp' software enabling Microsoft's dominant operating system to run on Macintosh machines. Apple has also tried to lure iPod fans into the cult of Macintosh users.
Sales of MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops grew 29% in the quarter, with more than half of those customers being first-time Macintosh buyers.
Meanwhile, the company reported that its iTunes online music store accounted for more than 80% of sales of music legally downloaded on the Internet. Last night's earnings report included a warning that Apple's internal investigation into back-dating of stock options granted to executives between 1997 and 2001 could have an effect on the company's finances.
Silicon Valley firms are among scores of US companies embroiled in a scandal related to allegations that employees' stock options had been dated retroactively to a time just before stock prices climbed or just after a dip.
