Apple hasn’t just posted yet another quarter of strong results, it’s blown Wall Street projections completely out of the water.
The company best known for the Mac, the iPhone, iPod and now the iPad, posted second fiscal quarter profit and revenue way out in front of what analysts had been expecting. That’s promising news for a tech sector looking for more proof of a rebound in spending.
The strong numbers came as a result of leaps in sales across a number of Apple categories, with even the now-aging iPod seeing a resurgence. Hardware Central takes a look.
The first calendar quarter is usually a slow one following the holiday shopping season, as consumers take a break to pay off massive credit card bills. With the U.S. slowly emerging from a crushing recession, it stood to reason that Apple, like Intel and AMD last week, would report numbers that were off from the Q4 high but better than seasonal average.
Not even close. For its second fiscal quarter ended March 27, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported revenue of $13.50 billion and net income of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share. A consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson/Reuters had pegged Apple to report revenue of $12.06 billion and per-share earnings of $2.44. Even the most generous estimates projected Apple reporting revenue of $12.6 billion and EPS of $2.72.
