Apple has just announced another record breaking quarter, coming off the holidays with $46.33 billion in revenue, $13.06 billion in net profit, and a whopping 37.04 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads, and 15.4 million iPods sold.

“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”

Apple’s live conference call starts in about 10 minutes and we’ll be doing play by play right here on iMore. Full PR after the break.

Conference call: apple.com

Apple Reports First Quarter Results

Highest Quarterly Revenue and Earnings Ever

All-Time Record iPhone, iPad and Mac Sales

CUPERTINO, California—January 24, 2012—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 first quarter which spanned 14 weeks and ended December 31, 2011. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 44.7 percent compared to 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2012 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PST on January 24, 2012 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq112. This webcast will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.

This press release contains forward-looking statements including without limitation those about the Company’s estimated revenue and earnings per share. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ. Risks and uncertainties include without limitation the effect of competitive and economic factors, and the Company’s reaction to those factors, on consumer and business buying decisions with respect to the Company’s products; continued competitive pressures in the marketplace; the ability of the Company to deliver to the marketplace and stimulate customer demand for new programs, products, and technological innovations on a timely basis; the effect that product introductions and transitions, changes in product pricing or mix, and/or increases in component costs could have on the Company’s gross margin; the inventory risk associated with the Company’s need to order or commit to order product components in advance of customer orders; the continued availability on acceptable terms, or at all, of certain components and services essential to the Company’s business currently obtained by the Company from sole or limited sources; the effect that the Company’s dependency on manufacturing and logistics services provided by third parties may have on the quality, quantity or cost of products manufactured or services rendered; risks associated with the Company’s international operations; the Company’s reliance on third-party intellectual property and digital content; the potential impact of a finding that the Company has infringed on the intellectual property rights of others; the Company’s dependency on the performance of distributors, carriers and other resellers of the Company’s products; the effect that product and service quality problems could have on the Company’s sales and operating profits; the continued service and availability of key executives and employees; war, terrorism, public health issues, natural disasters, and other circumstances that could disrupt supply, delivery, or demand of products; and unfavorable results of other legal proceedings. More information on potential factors that could affect the Company’s financial results is included from time to time in the “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” sections of the Company’s public reports filed with the SEC, including the Company’s Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 24, 2011 and its Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2011 to be filed with the SEC. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information, which speak as of their respective dates.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Verizon has released their Q4 2011 financial results and they seem to have done fairly well for themselves — 18.3 billion in gross profits, up 7.7%. Wireless revenue was up 13% with data revenue up 19.2%. (And yes, in case you were wondering, that’s why carriers want data-hungry devices like iPhones on their network.)

iPhone sales numbers weren’t disclosed in the results but Verizon had previously stated 4.2 million of Apple’s handsets went out the door last quarter. That’s double the previous quarter, which is impressive considering overall smartphone sales were short. Verizon did take a slight hit on the iPhone, however, having paid out higher than average subsidies.

It will be interesting to see the next few quarters when the iPhone 4S isn’t the newest, hottest handset on the market and rival platforms start to release their big hero devices.

Apple reports their Q1 2012 results later today.

Source: Verizon

Verizon has announced their Q3 2011 results and in the accompanying conference call revealed that they sold 2 million iPhone 4 handsets last quarter. As to iPhone 4S, unlike AT&T, who’ve already boasted about a million activations, Verizon offered only:

On Oct. 14, the Apple iPhone 4S became available on the Verizon Wireless 3G network.

The current quarter should be interesting.

Source: Verizon, AllThingsD

Apple today announced their Q4 2011 financial results, including 17.7 million iPhones, 11.2 million iPads, 6.62 million iPods, $6.62 billion in profits. Unfortunately for Apple’s stock in after-hours trading, that’s below expectations — the first time Apple hasn’t exceeded expectations since Q2 2002.

“We are thrilled with the very strong finish of an outstanding fiscal 2011, growing annual revenue to $108 billion and growing earnings to $26 billion,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Customer response to iPhone 4S has been fantastic, we have strong momentum going into the holiday season, and we remain really enthusiastic about our product pipeline.”

“We are extremely pleased with our record September quarter revenue and earnings and with cash generation of $5.4 billion during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 14 weeks rather than 13, we expect revenue of about $37 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $9.30.”

Of course these results don’t include 4 million iPhone 4S sold last weekend. In other words, North Carolina might not be enough. They’re going to need a bigger money bin.

We’ll be covering Apple’s financial results call at 5pm EDT, so keep your browsers’ locked here.

• Tim Cook (TC): First call since the loss of Steve Jobs. Cook is repeating the email he sent out previously.
• Peter Oppenheimer (PO): New record for Mac and iPad, new quarterly record for iPhone.
• PO: [Going over results]
• PO: Going over new MacBook Airs, Lion, Mac business.
• 6.6 million iPods, down from 9.3 million. iPod touch still 50%. iPod share remains 70% according to NPD. Continues to be best selling in most country. 4-6 weeks inventory.
• iBookstore has 180 million downloads.
• 17.1 million iPhones, compared to 14 million in previous quarter. New September record. Asia almost doubled. Please with growth as they transition to iPhone 4S. Expected design following new product rumors at WWDC. Declined in second half of quarter due to increased speculation. 4-6 weeks channel inventory.
• Deferred new carrier additions until after launch. Sprint and KDDI now added.
• iPhone ranked highest in customer satisfaction, performance, ease of opperation, features, design. 93% of Fortune 500 testing or deploying, 60% of Global 500 testing or deploying. Lowes is in process of rolling out custom app. L’Orelieel, RBS, SAP, TI, Land Rover, CXS.
• Thrilled to be shipping iPhone 4S, Siri. Customers will love performance of A5, camera, 1080p. Now in 7 countries, working hard to roll out in 22 countries by end of next month.
• New record 11.1M iPads sold. iPad 2 launched in 28 countries, 90 countries total. $6.9 billion in revenue. 4-6 weeks channel inventory.
• Only 18 months sicne introduction. 92% of Fortune 500 is testing or deploying. 52% of Global 500 testing or deploying.
• United Continental is putting iPad in airplanes. Sonic Automotive is using for checkin, analytics. General Mills, Siemens, others using them.
• 250 cumulative iOS device sales to date. Customers are loving iOS 5.
• iCloud launched last week. It’s the easiest way for customers to manage content. Early reviews excellent.
• App Store 500,000 apps, 18 billion download. 123 countries total.
• Apple Stores growing, Mac and iPad sales. iPhone sales slowed.
• Will be restoring or replacing older Apple Stores in US that can’t meet demand.
• $81 billion in cash.
• Next quarter to span 14 instead of 13 weeks. Talking expectations. Apple is usually very conservative.
• 4 72 million iPhones, 32 million iPads, 17 million Macs. 40 new stores
• Q&A!
• Q: iPhone 4S close to holidays, how do you mitigate shortage?
• TS: 4 million sold, great start, thrilled. Confident in supply, won’t speculate when demand will balance. Confident will set all time record for iPhone this quarter.
• Primary negative impact was sell-through pause? No inventory issues?
• TS: Much less of a reduction they were expecting. Revenue exceeded guidance. Knew there was great anticipation of June/July iPhone. That was pace for last several years. Decline did occur but not to extent they though, beat guidance. Reduction happened in back half of the quarter as speculation hit highs. Thrilled to be shipping iPhone 4S, iCloud, iOS 5.
• In wildest dreams couldn’t have gotten off to better start.
• Q: Why can’t you do better than 40% in September given how well iPhone 4S is already doing, favorable components.
• PO: Expect gross margins to be flat. Favorable environment will continue, healthy mix of iPhone. Fully offset of higher cost structures, lower price points for iPhone, iPod, US dollar.
• Q: Traction in China, any update? Insight? How substantial?
• TC: Progress has been amazing. Greater China was 2% in ’09. 12% in 2011. 16% last Q. Fastest growing major region by far. Up 4x, 270% year over year. Total revenue over 13 billion. A year ago, they were right above 3 billion. Growing at feverish pace. New retail stores. Online store opened at the end of last year. 200 mono-branded stores (resellers). Premium experience. 7000 point-of-sales on iPhone in Greater China. How far can it go? Never seen a country with as many people rising into the middle class, aspiring to buy products Apple makes. Enormous opportunity. Place more stores. Middle East has significant opportunities.
• TC: iPhone introduced whole new customers to Apple. iPad will do the same. The sky is the limit.
• Q: Update on margin flexibility as you start to use more than one source?
• TC: Outstanding team in this area, unparalleled track record. Keep trying to improve it. Use balance sheet in favorable way to do strategic deals. Very important to Apple across series of products. As they get larger, they have elected to diversify some, however their approach has been and will always be to do business with as few as possible to be very deep, do as great an innovation as possible. Give Apple great quality, reasonable prices. Helps margin.
• Q: Amazon with Kindle Fire, lower price points, limited features. Hybrid market?
• TC: Outstanding iPad quarter. 11 million. Same time setting Mac record. Phenominal. Seen several competitors try to compete with iPad. Different form factors, price points. Reasonable to say none have thus far gained traction. In fact, iPad share went up. June quarter, IDC said 3/4 tablets were Apple. Assess this thing, look at iOS 5, iCloud, iTunes and App Store ecosystem, books, movies, 140k native apps for iPad vs. 100s for other guys. He feels very comforatble in ability to compete. Pipeline.
• Q: Why defer carriers?
• PO: Knew they would launch iPhone 4S, wanted to launch new carriers with new device. Biggest impact was rumors. Pervasive. Behind them. iPhone 4S is off to fantastic start. Thrilled to be including Sprint, KDDI, best product line EVER!
• Q: Size of tablet market? Not netbook? How big could it be?
• TC: Thought from beginning it would be huge, has been even greater than they thought. 40 million iPads sold cumulative basis. Still believes tablet market will be larger than PC. Not guidance, what he believes. More people can access it, ease of use is off the charts.
• Q: How many iPhone units were deferred? How should they think of iPhone 4S launch? Velocity?
• TC: Can’t run experiment twice. Can’t tell with precision if no rumors, no expectation. He believes they were substantial. Get same answer from customers. 4S is off the charts. Do comparison of 3 days of launch. 4 was 1.7 million. 4S was over 4 million. Mother of all uplifts. Feedback is fantastic.
• Q: iPad category, now that it’s more experienced, Macs are up sequentially, how would iPad seasonality work? Gut feel?
• PO: Expect to establish new records for both iPhone and iPad, fantastic products, great market.
• Q: Siri?
• TC: Number of people using it is amazing. Questions, personality, is incredible. See Siri as profound innovation. Over time, many many people will use it in a substantial way. What percentage of input, search will be Siri, he doesn’t know but his gut it substantial, incredible innovation. Feedback they’re getting from customers.
• Q: Thailand?
• TC: Hearts go out to everyone who has lost life and family from monsoons, flooding. Apple has factories not-operable. Timeline is unknown. Whether hasn’t allowed assessment. Primary exposure is on Mac. Number of drive components sourced, Thailand is significant. Can’t give precise accounting, he’s concerned about it. Overall industry shortage of disk drives. Not sure. Placed assessment to degree they’ve already provided.
• Q: Patent disputes with Samsung, Android. What are your objectives? Injunctions, royalty fees?
• TC: Don’t want to comment on litigation. As you know, spend a lot of time and money and resource on coming up with innovation. Don’t like it when someone else takes those. Unfortunately pushed into court system. Don’t want to comment on remedies.
• Q: Price reduction on iPhone 3GS? Free on contract, cheap off. Elasticity? New segment of consumers? Prepaid vs. postpaid?
• TC: Wanted to make iPhone more accessible to broader market. Also lowered price of iPhone 4 to $99. These are still fantastic products. Can do reasonably well. Also has advantage in pre-paid markets. Lower than where entry points were previously. Did it for both markets. Both are very important. Thinking for a while to do that.
• Q: More on components!
• TC: Take is seriously!
• Q: Pressure on gross margins? Can expand or maintain if pressure from product mix?
• PO: Repeating December quarter predictions.
• Q: iPad, where is distribution rollout? Any pause? Growth in emerging markets?
• TC: In 90 countries on iPad. About 40,000 POS. 50,000 on iPod. 120,000 on iPhone. Still countries left to do. Are in main countries. Was there a slow down? With iPhone numbers, crystal clear there was a showdown. Not the case with iPad. Supply/demand, entered balance, stayed there for quarter. Outside of China, has already started looking at other countries. Already done. Over $900 million in Brazil. Some have protectionist strategies, very high if no local content.
• Q: First call as CEO, anything thoughts on different strategy, dividend, buy back? Cannibalization levels of iPad vs. Mac?
• TC: Second first. Seeing cannibalization. Showing up in 2 ways. Some buying iPad over Mac. Larger number are electing to buy iPad over Windows PC. Coming out very well. Mac had best quarter by far last quarter.
• TC: Wanted to maintain flexibility. Cash not burning a hole in their pocket. Conservative investments. Done a good job. Done things like acquire companies, acquired IP. Invested in supply chain. Build out stores. New product tooling. What they’re doing with cash, doing extremely good job. Very frugal.
• TC: Not religious about holding/not holding cash. Will ask what’s in Apple’s best interest and will always do that.
• PO: $81 in cash. $51 billion was offshore.
• TC: Series of unbelievable products. Pipeline is unbelievable. Totally separate and distinct things. Cash is always a topic. Always do what’s in Apple’s best interest.
• Q: iPhone goal was audacious at 1% at launch, now at 5%. 95% of market to go. Similarly audacious goal for next few years?
• TC: Want iPhone in as many hands as possible. Thinks it’s the greatest phone by far. Aspire to greater volumes. Smartphone market will absorb handset market. 1.5 billion handsets. Smartphone is 400 million. Huge growth. Also grow in sector. Big win is eat into 1.5. For anyone. Apple is very focused on doing that.
• Q: Extra week linear on revenue and expenses?
• PO: 14 week will conclude on New Year Eve day. Strong but not as strong as Thanksgiving to Christmas. For expenses, variable, payroll for 14 week. Fixed costs are fixed, benefit there as well.
• Q: Japan, bigger disparity on units vs. revenue?
• TC: Huge percentage of Japan total revenue in year ago quarter was iPhone 4 launch. Adversely effects revenue compare. Mac grew 48 percent. iPhone was negative year-over-year. One of first 7 countries, very good start.
• Q: tablet market higher or lower end?
• TC: Fantastic things in pipeline, sold 40 million in first 18 months. Have good handle on what to do next.
• Q: iPhone business into emerging market? Carriers thoughts on pricing change?
• TC: Look at channel inventory on iPhone at end of Q4, September 24 cut off. Half of that has already sold through. One portion driving that is elasticity. Also did, in a very few countries, dropped 3GS price a bit early. Particularly in pre-pay markets. Pleased with results.
• That’s it folks.!

Verizon has now joined Apple and AT&T in reporting their quarterly earnings, and the big news for us is that they activated 2.3 million iPhone 4 devices. That’s up from last quarter, but perhaps not as many as expected.

In the follow up, new Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam acted shocked — shocked we tell you — that there was no iPhone 5 this summer. He, like the rest of us, expect it this fall. Given Verizon only launched iPhone 4 in February, over a half-a-year later than AT&T, it’s hard to believe they were completely out of the loop on Apple’s roadmap this time around.

Either way, Apple previously reported selling 20 million iPhones this quarter, and AT&T activated 3.6 million. That means 5.6 million of those 20 million iPhones were activated on an official US carrier, and further proves just how much of Apple’s business is increasingly international (gray market included.)

[Verizon]

AT&T announced their Q2 2011 financial results today and they include 3.6 million iPhone activations, with 24% of subscribers being new to AT&T.

AT&T continues to deliver robust smartphone sales. (Smartphones are voice and data devices with an advanced operating system to better manage data and Internet access.) In the second quarter, 5.6 million smartphones were sold, a second-quarter record and the third-highest quarter ever. Smartphone sales also increased more than 43 percent year over year. Sales of non-iPhone smartphones more than doubled year over year. Nearly 70 percent of postpaid device sales were smartphones. During the quarter, 3.6 million iPhones were activated.

Android likely accounts for a huge majority of those “other smartphones”.

Apple yesterday announced 20 million iPhones sold in Q3 2011 (Apple and AT&T have different financial year-ends, so Q3 for Apple is Q2 for AT&T). It will be interesting to see how many iPhones Verizon moved when they release their results.

[ATT]

Apple today reported their Q2 2011 results, which included 18.65 million iPhones, 9.02 iPods, 4.69 million iPads sold during the quarter. Revenue was $24.67 and profits $5.99 billion.

“With quarterly revenue growth of 83 percent and profit growth of 95 percent, we’re firing on all cylinders,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year.”

“We are extremely pleased with our record March quarter revenue and earnings and cash flow from operations of over $6.2 billion,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $23 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $5.03.”

Apple’s conference call will shed some color on those numbers and we’ll update with the highlight after the break.

[Apple PR]

Conference call highlights:

• Peter Oppenheimer (PO): Record iPhone sales, record March quarter Mac sales. Robust demand for iPad.
• 95% growth over a year ago.
• Talking Macs. Air and Pro laptops drove demand.
• Lion preview brings ideas from iPad back to the Mac. Scheduled to ship this summer, will show more at WWDC in June.
• 9 million iPods. Lower year over years, ahead of expectations. iPod touch over 50%. Apple share of MP3 still over 70%.
• 4-6 weeks iPod channel inventory.
• iTunes $1.4 billion in revenue thanks to media and apps. Full catalog of Random House books. Now includes 2500 publishers in 20 categories. 100 million books downloads.
• 18.6 million iPhones. 113% year over year growth, ahead of IDC estimates. Revenue from handset and accessories $12.3 billion. America, AsiaPac doubling. Significant increase in capacity, expanded distribution.
• Please to be on Verizon, SK telecom in Korea, Saudi telecom. 186 carriers in 90 countries.
• 5.2 million iPhones in channel. 4-6 weeks of inventory.
• Enterprise growth, 80% of fortune deploying or testing. 100s of private, public companies supporting 1000s of iPhones, including Cisco, GM, Xerox.
• iPad has momentum. Sold 4.7 iPads. Launched iPad 2 in US and 25 additional countries by end of March. Working to get it into hands. 59 countries for iPad. Channel inventory down, below 850 thousand. Sold every iPad 2 they could make. Would like more inventory. Revenue was $2.8 billion.
• CIOs embrace iPad. Just over a year, 75% of Fortune 500 are testing or deploying. Xerox, ADP, Disney, USAA.
• iOS reached 189 million cumulative sales by end of March.
• Introduced iOS 4.3 including Nitro JavaScript engine, Hotspot, Home Sharing, better Airplay.
• App Store 350,000 apps, well over 3 billion downloads. New subscription service debuted. Made more than $2 billion in payments to developers.
• Apple Retail Store time. About to hit 1 billionth visitor.
• About half the Macs still sold to new customers.
• 323 stores.
• 40 new stores in fiscal 2011. 5th store in China.
• Still have those mysterious supplier agreements…
• Expect $23 billion in June quarter. Gross margins to be 38%. (They’re typically conservative.)
• Thrilled with results.

Q&A time

• Q: Is Japan causing disruption.
• Tim Cook (TC): Incredible tragedy, hearts go out. Apple has long history, strong ties, very sad. Helping with relief. Economics pales compared to human impact. Had some revenue impact in Q2 but not material. Q3 could be less but already factored. Did not have any supply or cost impact in Q2. Do not anticipate in Q3. Source hundreds of items in Japan, from components like LCD, NAND, optical drives, resins, coatings, etc. Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami and nuclear incidents have caused disruption but Apple has worked around the clock and have been able to implement contingency plans. Remain with long term partners, displayed incredible resilience. Do not anticipate any Q3 problems but have to be wary due to after shocks, etc. Don’t know of unsolvable issues but situation uncertain, no guarantee. Difficult to predict beyond Q3. Will address Q4 in July.
• Q: iPad 2 constraints. Where do they lie?
• TC: Demand staggering. Still amazed. Heavily backlogged. Extremely pleased. 25 additional countries. 13 more countries next week. Will add more in Q3. Confident they can produce a lot of iPads in Q3.
• Q: What drove iPhone strength? Carrier, region? How do we think about seasonality in June quarter?
• TC: iPhone did very well everywhere. Off the charts in US — 155%, adding Verizon was key. AT&T did extremely well as well. 3x IDC forecast for market. Continue to be on tear in China. Greater China was up over 3x, 250%. Catapulted revenue in Greater China to just under $5 billion. Up 4x. Extremely happy.
• PO: Increased inventory by over 1 million units. 4-6 weeks. June Q should be year over year increase. Significant.
• Q: What did you learn about elasticity with $49 iPhone 3GS.
• TC: Did very well. Very popular.
• Q: LTE, how mature? Urgency?
• TC: Asked this with Verizon launch, still see it in products being shipped. 1st gen chipsets force lots of design concessions. Apple not willing to make them. Very happy with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS. 3 more large carriers.
• Q: Sequential decline? Forces you’d highlight?
• PO: Priced aggressively. iPhone channel increased. iPad channel inventory fell.
• Q: iPad constraints?
• TC: Demand has been staggering.
• Q: CDMA? Magnitude of spending?
• TC: Don’t want to get into specifics on CDMA or GSM, constantly looking at where to bring on incremental partners. Brought on 3 this quarter.
• Q: How do you maintain competitive growth?
• TC: ComScore data released yesterday showed iOS outreached Android by 59% in US. Worldwide iPhone up, materially faster than market rate. Sold every iPad. Gaining traction in Enterprise, 88%, 75% of Fortune 500. Largest App Store, 350,000 iPhone, 65,000. Fewer than 100 tablet apps for Android. Feel very good. Feel great about future plans. Paid $2 billion to devs. 10 billion downloads. Business prop is very strong. Integrated approach materially better than Android fragmented approach, multiple stores, versions, screen sizes. User appreciates full experience responsibility. Fragmented approach turns customer into system integrator. Customer doesn’t want that.
• Q: Post vs. pre-paid iPhone. UA?
• Wanted to understand levers in China market. iPhone sale up 3x in Q2.
• Q: How is Steve doing?
• TC: Still on medical leave. Speak on regular basis, involved in strategic decisions. Wants to be back full time as soon as he can.
• Q: Supply question (again!) Was iPad 2 a forecasting error? Why couldn’t you have kept production higher, filled more.
• TC: Product transitions never simple. Have to call them many weeks in advance. How many current, dates of new product announcement. Added 170,000 new iPad 2s, most in transit. Net reduction was 400K. Sell through was close to 5 million. Sent out invite to event at end of Feb, announcement early March, on sale March 11, Q ended soon thereafter. Factored in to product transition. Key point, extremely pleased on manufacturing. Materially better start, a lot more units produced than first iPad. Confident enough already put on 25 more countries, 13 more next week. Even more in Q3.
• Q: New iPhones typically in June, new iPods in September. What could change that?
• TC: Nothing to share on that.
• Q: Supply/demand balance for iPhone, still haven’t met it?
• TC: In balance in almost all major markets.
• Q: iPad model, make sense to offer subsidies at some point?
• TC: Today is subsidized in Korea, Japan on 24 month contract. Some European countries. Most are on no-commitment pay-as-you-go. Yes, carriers can offer subsidies but many customers prefer PAYG.
• Q: Last year had new product transition, this year again? Can comment on Samsung?
• PO: Hard to comment on gross margin year over year, different cycles, mixes, other factors.
• TC: We are Samsung’s largest customer, valued supplier. Expect that to continue. Mobile Communication division had cross the line. After trying to deal with issue for a long time, they decided to go to court.
• Q: iTunes?
• PO: Biggest, largest, most content. Nothing beyond that.

That’s it! What do you think?

AT&T has just reported their Q4 2010 financial results and it included another 4.1 million iPhone activations.

More than 7.4 million postpaid integrated devices were sold in the fourth quarter, including the second-largest quarterly number of upgrades in the company’s history. Integrated device sales included 4.1 million iPhone activations. More than 80 percent of postpaid sales were integrated devices. (Integrated devices are handsets with QWERTY or virtual keyboards in addition to voice functionality and are a key driver of wireless data usage.)

At the end of the quarter, 61.0 percent of AT&T’s 68.0 million postpaid subscribers had integrated devices, up from 46.8 percent a year earlier. The average ARPU for integrated devices on AT&T’s network is 1.7 times that of the company’s non-integrated device base. More than 80 percent of integrated device subscribers are on FamilyTalk and/or business discount plans. Churn levels for these subscribers are significantly lower than for other postpaid subscribers.

AT&T didn’t break out iPad 3G numbers specifically but taken together with Android-based tablets, they added 442,000 devices to their network.

Since Apple sold 16.24 million iPhones during the same period, AT&T’s 4.1 million show the international growth Apple mentioned during their own quarterly results. Apple sold 7.33 million iPads last quarter, though no doubt many of those were Wi-Fi only models.

What if anything changes when the Verizon iPhone launches on February 10 won’t be reflected until AT&T’s Q1 (partial exclusivity) or Q2 numbers are in.

[AT&T]

Apple has just reported their Q1 2011 financial results — the always lucrative holiday quarter — and they don’t disappoint: 16.24 million iPhones, 7.33 million iPads, 19.45 million iPods, $26.74 billion in revenue.

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

Their conference call will be starting soon and we’ll post up any and all iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Apple TV, and other news as it comes in.

Apple earned more revenue this quarter than their ancient frenemy, Microsoft. Roughly $20 billion to $16 billion, or $4 billion more. Not too long ago they passed Microsoft in market cap as well, another impressive sounding, if not terribly meaningful measure. Microsoft still leads in profit due to their software-centric business being much higher margin than Apple’s hardware-heavy mix. But that too could and just might change as well.

Apple, thanks to the Apple II, got off to an impressive lead in the early days of command line personal computing. But things changed. Apple squandered the Mac’s first mover advantage and Microsoft and Windows ended up ruling the graphical user interface world. Now things are changing again. And that’s where it gets interesting.

60% of Apple’s profits come from products they’ve only released in the last three years, notably iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Almost everything Apple has planned and launched recently has been an incredible success, either profitable in their own right (like hardware) or deliberately run at just above break-even to support those profitable products (like iTunes and the App Store). And they’re still experimenting with new revenue models like iAds in the mobile advertising space.

By contrast, almost all of Microsoft’s profits came from products that have been around a generation, famously Windows and Office. Very little Microsoft has done recently has been a financial success for the company. Even the popular Xbox platform, billion dollar warranty extensions aside, has been a drop in the bucket compared to Windows and Office. Zune HD, a delightfully integrated media player was ultimately ignored and while Windows Phone 7 may bring licensing and Bing-driven advertising revenue, it remains to be seen if it can grab the mindshare Zune never could.

Apple still makes money from Macs but the world is rapidly going mobile and computing is rapidly going mainstream, and with iOS and devices like the iPad, Apple is already a dominant player and has a good shot at remaining a dominant player in the next great phase of computing.

Microsoft doesn’t really make money yet from mobile or internet services (they actually lose an almost incomprehensible amount overall). While they have some time left to turn that around — and to their credit they’re turning faster and better than most people imagined — right now they’re racing to keep up with Apple (and Google) in mobile.

Apple is set to announce its Q4 financial results today at 5pm ET, 2pm PT. The conference call usually provides a wealth of information about iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad sales, so we’ll be listening intently, posting highlights, and giving you our very best color and commentary to go along with it.

If you want to listen along with us, the call will be broadcast on Apple.com.

Commentary starts after the break!

• Results are in and they are insane: $20.34 billion, 14.1 million iPhones, 4.19 million iPads, 9.05 million iPods in Q4 2010
• Peter Oppenheimer (PO): Opening remarks, outstanding results. Best ever. All time records. Again. (Did I say insane?)
• PO: Mac growth. People love iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro… but not as much as iPad.
• PO: iPod share remains over 70%, iPod top selling, gaining share in most countries.
• PO: iTunes store over $1 billion in revenue. Ping in 23 countries.
• PO: iPhone 14.1 million sold, 91% year over year growth.
• PO: 8.6 billion in iPhone revenue. 8.82 billion including accessories.
• PO: 156 carriers, 89 countries. Asia, europe, Japan doubled year over year.
• PO: 80% of fortune 500 piloting iPhone. P&G, GE, Pfiezer, All State, others have made iPhone available to employees.
• PO: Could have sold more iPhones if we could have supplied them.
• PO: 4.2 million iPads. 26 countries.
• PO: 65% of Fortune 100 deploying or piloting iPad. P&G, Lowes, Hyatt, NBC, Novartis are examples.
• PO: $2.7 billion in iPad revenue. $2.8 billion including accessories.
• PO: Walmart, Target, Verizon, AT&T new distribution.
• PO: 125 million iOS devices as of last month.
• PO: iOS 4.2 coming November.
• PO: App Store has 200,000 registered developers. 65,000 games/entertainment. 30,000 iPad apps.
• PO: iAds results so far makes them “happy”.
• PO: Apple retail time.
• PO: $51 billion in cash.
• PO: 40 million iPhones sold full-year. 7.5 million iPads in 2 quarters.
• PO: Apple generated 5x revenue, 10x earnings as 2005.
• Steve Jobs! (SJ): 14.1 million iPhones represents 91% growth. Handily beat RIM’s 12.1 million BlackBerry’s sold in most recent quarter. Past RIM, doesn’t see them catching up. They must become a software platform company. A challenge for them. A high mountain to climb.
• SJ: Google activating 200,000 Android devices a day, 90,000 apps. Apple activating 275,000 iOS devices on average, 300,000 peek. Apple has 300,000 apps in its app store.
• SJ: No sold data on how many Android handsets sold. Manufacturers don’t report it. Hopes they will. Waits to see who was the winner in most recent quarter.
• SJ: Google likes to say Android is open, iOS is closed. Jobs finds that disingenuous. Unlike Windows, Android is very fragmented. Many Android OEMS including Motorola and HTC install proprietary UI, user is left to figure it all out. Every iPhone walks the same. TweetDeck recently launched Twitter Client, had to contend with 100 different versions on 244 different handsets. Many apps only work on some handsets on some versions, on devices shipped less than 12 months ago.
• SJ: Amazon, Verizon, Voda all creating their own app stores. Customers much search, devs much figure out. Going to be a mess. iOS App Store is one stop shopping.
• SJ: Even if Google was right, open systems don’t always win. PlaysForSure used separated model, even Microsoft abandoned that, turned to Zune, left OEM empty handed.
• SJ: Open vs. closed is smokescreen. What’s better for customer, fragmented or integrated? Android is getting more fragmented every day. Users shouldn’t be system integrators. Huge difference in approach. Apple thinks just works will trump Google’s approach every time. Better for developers.
• SJ: Apple confident integrated will triumph over Google no matter how much Google calls it open.
• SJ: Other tables appear to be just a handful of credible entrants. Almost all use 7″ screens compared to iPad 10″. Would offer 70% of benefits. But only 45% as large because of diagonal measure. 7″ screens a bit smaller than bottom half of iPad screen. Not big enough to make great tablet apps.
• SJ: Apple has done extensive testing, really understand this stuff. Limits to how close you can place elements for usability. Why 10″ is minimum size for great tablet apps.
• SJ: Every tablet user is also smartphone user. No tablet can fit in your pocket. Giving up precious diplay area to fit tablets in pockets isn’t the way to go. Tweeners.
• SJ: Many use Android software, even Google, tells manufacturers not to use Froyo. What does it mean when your software supplier says not to use the software and you ignore it?
• SJ: iPad now has more than 35,000 apps. New tablets will have 0.
• SJ: Competitors have a tough time coming close to iPad pricing even with smaller screen. Apple creates own chip, battery chemistry, enclosure, everything. Incredible product, incredible price. Competitors will likely offer less for more.
• SJ: New crop of tablets will likely be DOA. Too small. Will increase size next year, abandon customers and developers who went 7-inch.
• Tim Cook (TC): iPad supply constraints a balance with new launches.
• SJ: iPad proves not a question of if, a question of when it will effect PC. Lots of interest in education. Not pushing hard in business but being grabbed out of their hands. Being shipped instead of board books, doctors, hospitals. The more time that passes, the more Jobs is convinced they have a tiger by the tail. New model of computing. 10s of millions already trained on with iPhone. Lends itself to lots of aspects of life, personal, educational, business.
• SJ: Any updates on Flash? They love Flash memory! [Haha!]
• TC: Demand for iPhone 4 took it to an entirely different level, even higher than anticipated.
• SJ: Most web video is now HTML5, App Store, iTunes, dwarfs everything else. Very good product, hard to match, Apple’s not done. Doesn’t know what strategies competitors could take. Apple out to win.
• SJ: Largest phone market not smartphones, many will convert to smartphones, pie will continue to grow. Room for some number of companies will be successful. Later will turn into zero sum game or close to it. Right now it’s a battle for developers, customers. Right now iPhone and Android winning.
• SJ: Apple TV has gone streaming. Complete streaming. Soon to be streamed from iPhone or iPad with AirPlay. Already sold 250,000. When AirPlay is in place it will be another big reason to buy it. Apple really happy.
• PO: $100 million deferred for bumper program.
• SJ: Apple’s goal is to make best devices, not biggest. That’s Nokia. Apple admires how many they ship but don’t aspire to be like them. Android is biggest competitor, out shipped Apple in June during iPhone transition. Waiting to find out what happened in this quarter. Doesn’t know how they’ll find out, Gartner maybe? Will be competing with them for quite some time. Apple believes in their approach very strongly — providing users with a product that just works. Might be lots of users who want Google’s approach as well.
• SJ: Nokia makes $50 handsets. Apple isn’t smart enough to figure out how to make a good phone for that price. Apple’s goal is to make best, breakthrough products, drive costs down, make products better. That’s what they did with iPod. Update every year with better functionality at same or lower price. It was relentless improvement, in some cases at lower price, that beat competition, yielded market share. Apple has single digit phone market share, high marketshare in tablet because they’re first mover. Reason they wouldn’t make 7-inch tablet isn’t because of price point, it’s because they think it’s too small to express the right software. Apple is a software-first company. Developers aren’t going to deal really well with different screen sizes, when they can’t put enough elements on screen to build the apps they want to build. 7-inches isn’t about cost, it’s about value when you factor in software.
• SJ: Can’t assume software will take care of itself. Can’t just put in less memory, slower processor, assume software will come alive. It won’t. App developers have taken advantage of products that came before. It puts you back into chicken-and-egg. Won’t follow you. Won’t write watered down version of app because you can sell a phone for $50 less.
• SJ: Buy backs and dividends have been suggested but we think opportunities could come along that they could take advantage of. Don’t make stupid acquisitions but want to keep powder dry for 1 or 2 strategic acquisitions in the future.
• TC: Never seen enterprise adoption as fast as iPad. K-12 also adopting faster than historically. Adding capacity internally to call on businesses, huge amount also calling on education. AT&T direct result of customers wanting to buy iPad on post-pad.
• That’s it folks! Thanks!

Apple has just announced their Q4 2010 earnings, stated at $20.34 billion and including $20.34 billion, 14.1 million iPhones, 4.19 million iPads, 9.05 million.

“We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”

During the conference call, surprise guest Steve Jobs also revealed they’d sold 250,000 Apple TVs since launching it at the end of September.

Those numbers represent a nuclear level boom, even by Apple standards. Now about those surprises…?

[Apple PR]

Follow along with TiPb as we listen to and comment on Apple’s Q3 2010 financial results conference call. We’re not live-blogging this, just posting highlights so you’ll need to refresh from time to time to see new notes.

If you want to listen while you read, head on over to Apple.com for the audio stream.

Now on with the highlights:

• Waiting on additional participants to show up
• Starting now, IR person reading safe harbor provision
• Tim Cook (henceforth TC), Peter Oppenheimer (OP) on tap, no Steve Jobs announced
• OP: introducing results, began shipping iPad in 10 countries, launched iPhone 4, shipped iOS 4, new record for Mac sales
• OP: Highest revenue ever 15.7 million, 4.23 margin, 3.25 net income, EPS 3.51
• OP: Mac sales. Short version — they did very well.
• OP: 9.4 million iPods. Declining. iPod touch 48% growth. Mix-shift to iPod touch 12% up, revenue growth 4% up. Share over 70%. Top selling MP3 sale, gaining share.
• OP: iTunes exceeded 1 billion dollars. App Store 225,000 apps, 11,000 just for iPad. 5 billion apps downloaded.
• OP: iPhone 8.4 million, 1.7 million iPhone 4 in 5 countries. 61% year-over-year growth. Customers loving new features, FaceTime, Retina Display, glass and stainless steel
• OP: 5.53 billion for ancillary sales, up over 70%.
• OP: 154 carriers in over 80 countries, Asia, Europe, Japan increasing
• OP: Over 100,000,000 iOS devices sold. iOS 4 very favorable, people loving new features.
• OP: iPad off to good start. 3.27 million iPads sold in 10 countries. 9 additional countries on July 23.
• OP: Apple retail still growing.
• OP: [Talking financial details about why their usual conservative numbers were exceeded. Again. Seriously]
• OP: 48 billion on hand, up 4 billion. Still preserving capital, short dated, high quality investments
• OP: Outlook to Q4. Offering free cases to all customers who purchased iPhone 4 until Sept. 30. Deferring revenue on those cases. Should cost 175 million.
• OP: Expect 18 billion, 35% gross margin in Q4. Sequential decline due to higher mix of iPhone 4 and iPad which have higher cost structures, also free cases. Back to school promotions as well.
• OP: In closing, they’re thrilled!
• Now starting Q&A
• Q: What are you hearing from corporations, adoption?
• TC: iPhone now in 80% of Fortune 100 piloting or deploying, 60% of Fortune 500. 400 higher ed institutions as well. iOS 4 was a help.
• TC: iPad in first 90 days. 50% of Fortune 100 testing or deploying. Incredible.
• OP: Higher iPhone and accessory sales than they anticipated.
• Q: Supply/demand breakdown, constraints?
• TC: iPod, none. iPad and iPhone are different, both iPad and iPhone 4 had backlog couldn’t fill, still selling as fast as they can make them. High demand is never a problem. Planning 1 million a month capacity was a bold move, analysts predicted 1 million in sales for years. Did that in 1 month, still doing that. Apple is increasing capacity as fast as they can. Confident they will be able to do it.
• TC: Just started ramping iPhone 4 in June. Limited days, only 4 days in Q.
• TC: greatly reduced iPhone 3GS sales around June 7. Didn’t launch iPhone 4, new 3GS on June 24. Result was significantly lower sales after June 7 until June 24.
• TC: 250,000 more units if they’d held inventory flat.
• Q: Why are there supply problems? Rumors Apple does that on purpose.
• TC: Would rather market move quickly to new products. How they want to manage it. Don’t purposefully create shortages for buzz. Not their objective. Would like to fill every order as quickly as they can. Demand for iPhone 4 absolutely stunning.
• TC: Returns for antenna issue are very small.
• TC: Pleasantly surprised how fast iPad has gotten going. Much faster to 1 million than iPod. Not following typical new product curve where it takes a long time to go mainstream after early adoption.
• OP: Won’t reveal iPod Wi-Fi vs. 3G split, but demand for all of them have been amazing. Average $640.
• Q: Will iPad cannibalize other product lines? Any thoughts?
• TC: Discuss it internally, only selling 3 months. To early to tell. Thrilled they recorded best Mac quarter ever even with iPad sales. Jaw dropper.
• Q: iAds business?
• OP: Just launched in July. Will learn a lot this calendar year. No further specifics.
• Q: Datacenter coming along?
• OP: On schedule. Everything going fine. Expect to complete by end of calendar year.
• Q: Cannibalization of iPad on iPod touch?
• OP: iPod ASPs down $7, driven by start of back to school promotion, stronger US dollar. Mix up on iPod touch.
• Q: Impact of bumper give-away?
• OP: Will need to defer revenue for iPhone 4 they sell where they’ve not delivered bumpers, not heard from customers wanting to place order. Revenue accrual with no cost, will expense cost when shipped to customers.
• Q: Android shipments increasing, competition to iPhone family?
• TC: Haven’t seen Android results, sum of several companies. iPhone up 61% despite drawdowns and transition, growing faster than market.
• Q: Competing tablets, 3G subsidies coming fall, impact?
• TC: Selling every unit they can make, looks good in every country they’ve launched it in. Anecdotally growing faster than early adopter, faster than any product he knows of. Doesn’t know what competition will do. Everyone working on something. Apple extremely happy with position and business model. Affordable rate structure, starts at $15, no commitment, aggressive device pricing. Yes, someone could jack up rate plans, subsidize. Not sure people will want another contract. If someone tries it, both learn.
• Q: iPhone software developers have complained not about App Store rules but about arbitrary nature. Apple done anything?
• OP: Always looking to make developers happy, 225K apps, 5 billion downloads, 1 billion in payments to devs, iAds a second stream. Care deeply. Want to have great apps. Success is unparalleled.
• TC: Vast majority of apps approved within 7 days. Many that aren’t have bugs, re-submitted, approved. Want to ensure pornography, graphic scenes don’t come on platform. Not everyone agrees, but that’s how they’re doing it.
• Q: Dev concern misplaced?
• TC: Value their concerns, modify when appropriate. Won’t say every concern misplaced. Value their feedback.
• Q: Move to mobility?
• TC: Long run, will see portables grow.
• Q: FaceTime, industry standard, how will it role out? Windows, Mac?
• TC: Sticking to financials for today.
• Q: iPhone strong in Asia, Europe, Japan. Why not North America?
• TC: Not law of large numbers. Phone market will increasingly become smartphone market. Steve said that long ago. Lots of domestic, Americas opportunities. Mac, iPhone, or iPad growing faster internationally. See that in revenues as well. Perspective, Americas growing 40% so this is huge number, just international numbers are killer.
• Q: iPhone growth has come from broader carrier distribution. Broaden within countries, emerging markets like China, India, pre-paid?
• TC: Extraordinary opportunity. Mac as example, AsiaPC Mac grew 73%, phenomenal. In China, grew 144%. Korea, 184%. HK almost 200%. Even in difficult economy like Spain, grew 59%.
• TC: iPhone space doing well in all key markets, expanding that, learning what they learned with exclusive deals, looking market by market, opening Spain up. Will go from exclusive in Spain to 3. More countries remaining. Increased distribution, market, move to smartphone. All in iPhone favor. Sees enormous opportunity. Biggest challenge is determining which to deploy resources.
• Q: Will there be iPad halo?
• TC: Agrees, most people external to Apple focus on cannibalization, internally focus on synergy between. iPod historically people at Apple felt iPod created halo for Mac. Will see about iPad, doesn’t want to predict it. Mac share still low. Still enormous opportunity to grow. Might be some synergy. iDevices -> Mac, iPad < -> iPhone. This is where it’s great to have lower share. If iPad cannibalizes PCs, fantastic for Apple. Big market.
• Q: Impact of wage hikes from sub-contractors?
• TC: Don’t want to get into terms of commercial agreements, competitive info.
• Q: Expand carriers to tap domestic demand, or enough with AT&T?
• TC: Very happy to be partner with AT&T. Been first class partner, pioneered smartphone growth from network POV in US. That’s all.
• OP: Best iPhone they’ve ever shipped, higher cost structure.
• Q: Gap iPhone, iPad supply and demand? How many units?
• TC: Don’t know. Only know if you have enough supply. Don’t have it.
• That’s all folks!

Apple has announced their Q2 2010 financial results, including sales of 8.75 million iPhones, 10.89 million iPods, and $13.50 billion in revenue. We’re now listening in to their conference call and updating any particularly relevant iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad news below:

• Call beginning. Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer (Apple COO and CFO are there). No Steve Jobs (CEO)
• Best non-holiday quarter ever (again)
• Highest iPhone sales quarter ever. (wow).
• Almost 3 million Macs. Starting with those. We’ll take a nap until iPhone comes up…
• iPod touch sales 63% year to year. Strong performance. Strongest growth rate in a while. Still over 70% share.
• iTunes sales 1.1 billion, strong on music, video, apps.
• 185,000 apps, over 4 billion downloads
• iPhone grows more than 3x more than smartphone estimates over all.
• Best quarter ever for iPhone (wow repeat).
• 151 carriers in 88 countries.
• IPhone again ranked first in JD Powers.
• iPhone OS 4 this summer, developers thrilled.
• iPad 3G on track to ship April 30 US, end of May international
• Apple Retail up again as well.
• (Retail results remind us why Apple doesn’t need tradeshows anymore).
• Strong iPhone and accessory mix contributed to results.
• Over $40 billion in the bank now, up over $1 billion. Still keeping it in the bank.
• (Going over numbers, we’re waiting for the Q&A…)
• Next quarter will include iPad revenue.
• Q&A time!
• What impact has the iPad had on the Mac? Any cannibalization? Cook: No obvious impact last quarter on Mac or iPod. iPad sales have exceeded expectations.
• March step down due to iPad anticipation? Cook: [Not really.]
• Any word on mix of iPad Wifi vs. 3G sales? Cook: Too early.
• Low guidance for next quarter result of product change for iPhone (sneaky!): Oppenheimer: [long list of factors] Not much experience on seasonality of iPhone yet. Will report in July. iPad, thrilled… [yada yada boilerplate....]
• Why was iPhone so strong? International? Cook: Inventory was flat. Staggering growth rates Asia Pac (474%), Japan (183%), Europe (133%). Added 8 carriers in key countries, Vodafone in UK, Ireland. Existing carriers strong. Greater China (PRC, HK, Taiwan) up year over year, 800 more points of distribution. 1st half 2010 revenue was $1.3 billion up 200%.
• App Store and higher priced iPad apps? Oppenheimer: thrilled, [yada yada boilerplate]. 3500 iPad apps.
• Production demand? Can produce, can ramp up? Cook: no production problem per se. Demand stronger than predicted. Had to push out international launch to get iPad 3G out in US. We’ll see. Level of demand has shocked Apple.
• iAd is profit or break even like App Store? Oppenheimer: putting toes in water, learning, building foundation.
• AT&T network improvement plan? Cook: looking forward to continued improvement.
• How much of growth came from new carriers? Cook: don’t break that out but important.
• Exclusive carrier thinking? How important is availability to any carrier in any country? Cook: 3 main countries with contractual exclusive US, Germany, Spain. Others have smaller, co-exclusive. Over last year, moved some from exclusive to non, in each case sales of increased and so has market share, but doesn’t mean that’ll be the same everywhere. Think carefully everywhere, what’s in Apple’s best interest.
• iPad has dramatically lower margins than company average? Cook: don’t give out specific product margins, but priced iPad aggressively to deliver value. Thinks market size for iPad is very large, want to capitalize on first mover advantage. Good track record of riding out cost curves. That’s been their experience.
• iPad subscription accounting like iPhone or regular like iPod? Oppenheimer: Will discuss that in July quarter when they discuss iPad revenue.
• New hardware, new products, iPhone OS 4, new distribution, great marketing
• Apple is more aggressive in protecting patents, legal expenses? Oppenheimer: factored into guidance.
• International carriers 75% for last quarter? Learned anything about international market ramp-up? Cook: Smartphone market is great market to be in, high growth rate, iPhone outgrew market by 3x, even better outside US. Won’t say anymore, doesn’t want anyone to copy (zing!)
• Apple TV, any update? Cook: up 34% year-over-year, still small, still a hobby. Market is much smaller than PC, smartphone, MP3 player. Those are enormous. Apple TV is not in a market that large yet. However, they love product, use it, think something’s there.
• iAd could be source of significant incremental earnings? Oppenheimer: toes in the water, don’t expect much this calendar year, learning for future.
• Will iPad cannibalize iPod touch or competing netbooks? Cook: nothing obvious in iPod or Mac numbers to suggest cannibalization but hadn’t started selling yet so don’t know yet. Can’t answer netbook, to Cook its not brainer, 100 to 0, can’t think of a single thing netbook does well. Cook addicted, couldn’t live without it.
• Why is iPad independent market? Why will Apple outpace other tablets, ebook readers? Cook: Steve positioned it extremely well, between notebook and smartphone. His personal use, variety of things he’d put on that list. Email, browsing, music, videos, tv shows, reading books, list goes on. App Store, ecosystem, games, large canvas, serious apps, less serious apps. More room to do cool things. Is new category. Early but really like what they see. Had high hopes, exceeded those.
• With low end $99 iPhone, can Apple influence carriers on plan costs, TCO? Cook: do everything that they can to try and get best deal possible for consumer. iPhone 3GS mix was high, and that starts at $199. Price is important but people also want innovative product, apps, os, ecosystem, incredible hardware.
• iPad attach rates for accessories relative to iPhone, iPod? Oppenheimer: accessory portfolio is good for us, 5000 accessories for iPhone, iPod largely work for iPad. Apple has some great ones. Developers rallying as well. Give it a little time.
• [discussing Apple Store growth]
• iPad will be reported similar to iPhone, line item on data summary. Revenue will be reported for unit and for accessories, also similar to iPhone.
• iPad apps being bought differently than iPhone? Oppenheimer: very early days. Getting apps, getting books, great thing. Will talk more in future. Not focused on making a lot of money on App Store, run a bit over break even.
• iPhone halo in Europe? Oppenheimer: Don’t break it down.
• iPhone is sales value in quarter of sale, no carrier payments, accessories, etc.
• iPad bringing any new kinds of customers to Apple? Cook: too small a time, not something that could be read into.
• Other extraordinary products in pipeline, new or updates? Oppenheimer: won’t help competitors by answering.
• That’s it folks, thanks!

Apple has posted their Q2 2010 financial results and once again its the best non-holiday quarter even, including $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share. iPhone sales were 8.75 million (up 131%) and iPod sales of 10.89 million (down 1%). Says CEO Steve Jobs:

“We’re thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49 percent and profits up 90 percent. We’ve launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year.”

We’ll be listening in to their conference call and providing our usual special brand of TiPb commentary, so join us over in that post for more.

Hot on the heels of Apple’s explosive Q1 2010 results come AT&T’s Q4 2009 financials, and once again the iPhone helped its exclusive US carrier paint a rosy picture that includes 3.1 million new activations.

AT&T’s fourth-quarter integrated-device growth included 3.1 million iPhone activations, the second highest quarterly total to date, with more than a third of the activations for customers who were new to AT&T. The average ARPU for integrated devices on AT&T’s network continues to be 1.8 times that of the company’s nonintegrated-device base.

ARPU (average revenue per user), as Dieter keeps telling us, is the magic number for AT&T, and despite complaints about service in cities like New York and San Francisco, iPhone users continue to use — and pay for — a lot of data.

And with Apple still in their corner, and the iPad plans so far exclusively on AT&T as well, that may not be changing soon…

Apple today announced their Q1 2010 financial results, covering the all-important holiday quarter, with 8.7 million iPhones sold, and a 55% increase in iPod touch sales. Total revenue was $15.68 billion, and cash-on-hand is now approaching a whopping 39.8 billion! Says CEO, Steve Jobs:

“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

Way to iTablet tease us there, big fella.

During the conference call that followed, CFO, Peter Oppenheimer and COO, Tim Cook revealed:

• 17 new carriers for the iPhone, including Bell Canada, Telus Canada, Orange France, China Unicom, Korea
• iPhone “very strong” in Japan, Australia, UK, Germany
• Business users ranked iPhone #1 in satisfaction according to JD Power
• 70% of Fortune 100 businesses piloting or deploying iPhone
• New accounting methods mean $25 of iPhone revenue deferred for “updates”
• Apple defended AT&T, said they have higher broadband usage than any other carrier, great experience for many customers, and have shared with Apple plans to improve problem cities
• 2.7 million iPhones in channel, including in-transit, invoiced to carriers, demos.
• 200,000 iPhones activated in China. Ramping slowly to ensure customer experience.
• Nothing on Nokia lawsuit.
• 90% of iPhone Apps approved in 14 days. Apple wants to protect privacy, prevent porn, defend children. Most frequent cause of rejection is bugs in app.
• Cook: Noise about App Store frustration may be higher than reality (orly?)
• Could anything equal Mac, iPod, iPhone for Apple? Wait for Wednesday!
• iPhone 3GS features accelerated corporate adoption (hardware encryption?)
• Adding carriers in existing countries earned incremental growth.
• Quattro Wireless was acquired to provide developers, especially those who develop free apps, a seamless way to earn money.
• iTunes/App Store still run just above break even, Apple reinvests revenue to maintain and improve customer experience as it scales.
• Japan iPhone growth 400%, Asia Pac iPhone growth 500%
• On Google: Apple competes with Google in some areas, works with them in others.

For more from the conference call, check out TiPb’s live coverage!

Apple will be releasing their Q1, 2010 financial results later today, and following up with their traditional conference call at 2pm PT/5pm ET/10pm GT. A Q&A with analysts will follow (and we hope they’ve all taken Matt Deatherage’s advice).

TiPb will be covering the event live, right here in this very post. So, to observe, comment, and enjoy along with us, bookmark this page and come back and join us at start time!

Hot on the heels of Apple’s Q4 results come AT&T’s Q3 report, and the iPhone-related news keeps getting better and better, including a record 3.2 million activations, 40% of which went to new customers.

And the records didn’t stop there. Highest Q3 net subscriber gain, best ever Q3 churn rate, largest quarterly increase of integrated devices (like iPhone) in history, and 33.6% increase in data revenue.

What’s astonishing is this growth persists despite widespread, ongoing — almost farcical at this point — reports of poor network experience for iPhone users. Imagine if AT&T could build out infrastructure to meet demand in areas like San Francisco and New York?

And how happy are they Verizon appears to be out of the iPhone picture, at least for now?

We’ll be beginning TiPb’s live coverage just before 2pm PT/5pm ET, but Apple has already released their results, and they include 7.4 million iPhones and 10.2 million iPods (they don’t break out numbers for the iPod touch) sold in Q4 2009.

“We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010.”

TiPb will be providing live coverage of the call, so join us back here at start time.

A Canadian buffet of Rogers news today, with Q2 financial results, an update on the current out-of-stock situation at Rogers, Fido, and Apple Canada, and the beginning of an HSPA+ super-fast 3G rollout.

First up, Bloomberg (via MDN) reports that Rogers that ARPU (average revenue per user) was down $1.47 as customers curbed long-distance and travel, while total sales rose 3.1%. As to the iPhone in particular, the introduction of the iPhone 3GS and $99 price point for the iPhone 3G helped Rogers add 148,000 subscribers this quarter.

Second, TUAW reports that Rogers, their subsidiary Fido, and Apple Stores (which just began carrying the iPhone in Canada on June 19) are all in short supply or completely sold out of iPhones. Given that Apple reported 5.2 million sold last quarter amid shortages, and is planning to fill out 80 countries by the end of the year, we can only repeat Dieter’s abject shock at the continuing sales volumes…

Third, and funnest (TM iPod touch),Engadget Mobile says Rogers is ready to rock and roll with HSPA+ at 21Mbps. Zoom. Zoom. The GTA will get initial love, though Rogers says it will expand quickly to other cities. Since the iPhone 3GS only supports up to 7.2Mbps, we’re not likely to benefit directly, though we only get half that currently so who knows…

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News

• Apple Q3 2009 Conference Call – 5.2 Million iPhones Sold
• iPhone and iPod touch: Now with 45 Million Unit Install Base
• Apple: We Knew Traditional iPod Sales Would Decline, That’s Why We Developed iPhone
• Dear Apple: How About that Premium App Store?
• iPhone — 20% Profit Share of Mobile Industry?
• AIM Push Problems – Hacktivated iPhones to Blame?
• Third Generation iPod touch to get Camera… and Microphone?
• No Promo Codes for Apps Rated 17+ — Including Browsers?!
• Developer: Serious Doubts About App Store, Does Apple Care?
• Rumor: Subsidized Apple iTablet Coming to Verizon this Year?
• UPDATED: Amazon Remote Wipes Kindle Copies of 1984, Animal Farm — Redefines Irony
• Microsoft Store to Compete With Apple Store — By Not Selling Anything

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Apple’s exclusive US iPhone carrier, AT&T has announced their Q2 2009 financials, and when it comes to the iPhone, more is… well, more.

• 2.4 million iPhones activated during the quarter
• (Apple sold 5.2 million, so that obviously doesn’t include international or as-yet unactivated iPhones).
• 1.4 million new customers.
• 3.4 billion (with a b!) in data revenue.

The downside? AT&T had to swallow those iPhone subsidies up front, leading in part to a 15% fall year over year:

“Increased operating expenses in the second quarter of 2009, in part, reflect volume-based acquisition costs associated with the success of the iPhone 3GS launch, which started June 19. AT&T’s iPhone customer characteristics are attractive, with (average revenue per user) significantly higher than and churn rates well below the company’s postpaid averages; as a result, robust iPhone demand drives strong recurring revenues and substantial long-term value. AT&T iPhone subscribers, both new customers and upgrades, take two-year contracts with data packages. As a result, robust iPhone demand drives strong recurring revenues and substantial long-term value.”

Translation: It cost them a few hundred bucks per user now, but those users are giving them back a hundred bucks a month for the next 24 months. Do. The. Math.

The big picture remains, however, that AT&T needs the iPhone to keep customers, get new customers, and earn big money off those high value customers.

[via Apple Insider]

Apple announced their Q3, 2009 financial results today. - Press release is live: The Company posted revenue of $8.34 billion, with 5.2 Million iPhone sales in the quarter. (That makes an install base of 45 million plus iPhone OS devices, including iPod touch). Boom.

“We’re making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year.”

Apple also hosted an accompanying conference call, highlights after the break!

(Updates posted in reverse chronological order from latest or oldest)

• And we’re done!
• App Store pricing. Race to the bottom with $0.99 apps? Can Apple help sort out quality vs. quantity? Tim Cook: has ideas on categorizing Apps differently. Today does it based on type. As App Store grows, makes sense to have lower prices but that’s up to developers.
• iPhone sales, anything on new activations vs. upgrades? Tim Cook: Can’t share, confidential to carriers.
• iPhone in China? Tim Cook: Nothing to add today but continues to be priority project. Hopes to be there within a year.
• Supply constraints to effect international rollout? When will it balance? Tim Cook: Won’t balance in short term but won’t give prediction. Too hard to judge demand without supply. Vast majority will be selling 3GS by end of quarter, may move date by a week or more.
• iPod touch user base, how many upgraded? Tim Cook: a good number, won’t be specific. Priced aggressively. Want to get platform out there, good for ecosystem, developers. Try to get people to upgrade.
• Competitors tinkering with pre-paid model. Apple interested? Tim Cook: Apple doing that as well in markets that are predominantly pre-pay. Apple has lots to learn. Still a beginner. Can make improvements. Model works well in post-paid, but pre-paid could be interesting. Have multiple things going on. Hope to improve going forward.
• Asking about iPhone activations. US represents 40% of activations. Shouldn’t international side pick up, grow faster? Tim Cook: don’t release sales by geography. Smartphones in general sell better in post-pay environment. Not unique to Apple, reality of market.
• Follow up on netbook. Think an emerging market for a truly mobile device, larger screen, do more than with iPhone? Tim Cook: Never discount anything, won’t answer about new products. Customers want full featured notebooks. Apple delivers those, delivers value. Customers very happy. Current netbooks are very slow, software is old, don’t have robust computing experience, lack horsepower, small screens, cramped keyboards. People not happy. Apple will only play where they can deliver products that are innovative, proud of.
• Will Apple invest in NOC to take pressure off carrier? Cook: No plans to do so. When they entered business, they came to conclusion they could deliver world class handset, deliver something revolutionary. Other people have better skills at networks. Apple working with them as partners.
• AP asks if growth of Apps constrained by network capacity of carrier partners? Tim Cook: better question for them. Without singling out [AT&T] Cook sees them investing in making better networks, happy with rising ARPU, lower churn. Changes customer acquisition. Thinks they will continue to make investments to deliver faster networks.
• Has outgrown market 18/19 quarters. Cook thinks that means they have right approach.
• Asking about netbooks. Tim Cook: Apple’s goal is not to build most computers but to build the best. Will play at whatever price point they can build the best. Don’t see a way to build a great product at $399/$499. Thinks customers, many customers, become disenchanted after they buy them. Continue to focus on building best and giving tremendous value.
• Additional distribution and pricing model needed to sustain growth? Tim Cook: Just took major change with intro of $99 product. Reason to do that was view of elasticity. Working hard to continue expanding distribution in countries they’re in, (where it makes sense) and adding new countries. Still large markets left uncovered. [China?]
• RBC Capital asking about competitive App Stores and software. How to out innovate in user experience and leadership? Tim Cook: Won’t talk about future plans. Summarize last 30 days: shipped iPhone 3.0, App Store now available in 77 countries. Install base more than 45 million (iPhone + iPod touch). Quotes App Store stats. 65,000 apps compares RIM/Nokia, Android. Substantial lead in Apps and innovation. Years ahead of other people.
• Asking why iPod channel was reduced. Tim Cook: to support new Shuffle and easter holiday, they increased. When that was done, they decreased, and also demand was lower and iPhone cannibalized. Shuffle, nano, and classic demand also lowering (“classic MP3 player market”). Still in target range, however.
• Apple benefitting from higher iPhone revenue. [No doubt!]
• Asking if $99 iPhone 3G actually served as traffic driver for iPhone 3GS. Was that it’s role, or is it really part of iPhone story. Tim Cook: Focused on total iPhone story. Too early to tell ultimate mix due to only shipping in 18/80 countries and supply constraints. Also upgrades happen early, upgraders likely to pick newer version.
• Talking about $999 MacBook vs. cheaper MacBook Pro pricing mix. Tim Cook: competitive info.
• Asking why Snow Leopard was priced so low. Tim Cook: Even better Leopard, redefines 90% of projects. Something about not even Windows building in (Exchange support?). Priced aggressively so all users can upgrade. Hoping they do. Expect to ship later this quarter.
• Talking about MacBook pricing elasticity. When they can do it at lower prices, they will but won’t put Apple brand on products that don’t innovate.
• Asking about 5.2 million iPhone sales in Q3 and supplies still constrained. How’s inventory. Tim Cook: Flat sequentially. What that means is selling more units at the end, don’t have a channel loaded. Haven’t seen anything like it. About 1.83 million inventory, including in transit, invoice, demo — counted conservatively.
• Talking about reduced margins due to back to school promotions, lower MacBook prices, etc.
• Questions on guidance and margins…
• Follow up question on progress in enterprise accounts? Tim Cook: Growing interest with release of iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3.0 due in part to new hardware encryption and security policies. Doing best in corporate and government who allow individual purchases. 20% of Fortune 100 customers bought 10,000 iPhone, some have bought 25,000. In over 300 higher education institutions.
• David Baily asks how $99 iPhone is doing. Change in mix since launch? Tim Cook: Acceleration of total unit sales, can’t tell exact mix since it’s competitive data. iPhone 3GS supply is still constrained, so demand very robust.
• Nothing to announce about U-Verse, 3G in laptops. Happy with AT&T relationship.
• Tim Cook answering Gene Munster on how carrier relationships will evolve: most of the carriers they’re doing business with are thrilled with lower churn and higher ARPU. Customers demanding iPhone. Looking to expand.
• Closing canned remarks. Can has Q&A soon?
• $500M prepayment to Toshiba for NAND flash memory
• 31.1 BILLION in cash on hand(!)
• More financial stuff…
• 1.5 billion in revenue for Apple Stores.
• iTunes experience getting better. 8 billion songs purchased.
• Didn’t recognize iPhone revenue until iPhone 3.0 became available on June 17.
• 1.69 billion from iPhone, accessories, carriers, etc.
• App Store stats: 65,000 apps. 3.0 will create even more innovative apps.
• Continuing to roll out 3GS to 80 countries this summer.
• iPhone 5.2 million sold in June quarter! 1 Million iPhone 3GS in 3 day launch. Cannot make enough to meet demand. Working to address this.
• 70% of US market. iPod top selling MP3 player. Gaining share in almost every country tracked.
• iPod touch grew 30% year over year.
• 50% of iPod buyers are still new buyers, even in established markets
• Traditional MP3 players declined, as internally forecast. Reason why they developed iPod touch and iPhone. They’re cannibalizing themselves. Business will still last for years.
• 10.2 million iPods. Down from last quarter. Reduced channel inventory and sell-through declines.
• 13% increase in laptop sales. Customers favorable on new portables.
• 2.6 million Macs. Sales increased 100K units over prior year.
• Lots of financial info we shan’t bore you with. Read press link below…
• Record June revenue. Highest non-Holiday revenue in history.
• Call’s about to start. Will update as news is announced.

The Wall Street Journal (via MacRumors) published a report stating that while Apple’s iPhone, and RIM’s BlackBerry make up only 3% of mobile phone sales last year, the gobbled up a huge 35% take of the profits. iPhone specifically was pegged at 1% of sales and 20% of profit. Boom! indeed.

Says Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff:

The disparity will become even starker this year when the two will take 5% of the market in unit terms but 58% of total operating profits.

While feature phone maker Nokia can compete due to vast economies of scale, their profits have been declining, as have Sony Ericsson. Palm’s Pre is seen as something of a wildcard, depending on developer support and distribution reach.

For their part, Apple is set to announce Q3 results tomorrow, July 21, at 5pm ET. TiPb will provide our usual coverage of the conference call, especially as results pertain to the iPhone.

UPDATING ON LIVE CONFERENCE CALL:

• Waiting for call to start, any minute now. Will post updates only when major iPhone-ish news is announced (or inner fanboy takes over).
• Covering Macs
• iPod touch growth, customers embrace superior features and apps.
• US market share for MP3 players 70%, gaining share in most international markets
• UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, China, growing.
• iTunes store had good quarter.
• DRM free now all 4 major labels and indies.
• App Store unparalleled succes.
• 35,000 apps, +20,000 since last call
• Almost at 1 billion downloads

More after the break!

• App Store key differentiator
• Still believe they are years ahead of competition.
• iPhone sold 3.8 million, 123% increase from a year ago
• iPhone reach now in 81 countries
• iPhone 3.0 and SDK being covered, highlighting features…
• (We’ve already done our massive coverage)
• Delaying recognition of revenue on all iPhones sold since March 17 delayed until 3.0 is released this summer. Prior sales not effected.
• Covering Apple Stores
• Margins 36%, driven by commodity costs being lower, sales of higher margin products like software and accessories, lower freight costs
• Cash for short term is 28.9 billion (!)
• Going to conserve capital
• Covering projections for next quarter…
• Predicting 7.7 – 7.9 billion (includes delay in iPhone revenue recognition)
• Can’t wait to get iPhone 3.0 into customer’s hands this summer. (er… and other stuff )
• (Giving iPhone the most love?)
• Q&A now beginning…
• Talking component prices, NAND memory prices might be going up…
• Bank of Montreal in the house! Asking about cash flow being down… snore.
• Talking about sales of desktops, laptops…
• Cook: For Apple is about doing great products, Netbooks are cramped, junky, small, not a consumer experience and not something they would put the Mac brand on. Not interested in it, don’t think long-term customers are interested either. Watching space, however.
• Customers looking for netbooks might want to look at iPhone, iPod touch
• If Apple can find innovative product that makes contribution, they have some ideas, pipeline looks fantastic.
• Netbooks – stretch to call them computers — are propping up unit sales for others.
• App Store mix between paid and free, between iPhone and iPod touch? Apple doesn’t disclose.
• Key growth to iPod this quarter despite economics, iPod touch more than doubled year over year.
• iPhone + iPod touch now 37 million units
• Tim Cook: we’re not economists (!)
• Question: Survey says #1 reason people don’t buy iPhone
• Cook: AT&T good partner, #1 carrier, very happy to do business with them. Have put full weight behind iPhone. No plan to change it.
• Cook: Verizon is on CDMA, chose from beginning of iPhone to focus on one phone for world, which means GSM route. CDMA has no life to it after a point in time.
• Cook: No iPhone in China yet, would like to be in next year. Nothing to announce today.
• Steve Jobs?
• Oppenheimer: Look forward to Steve returning at the end of June.
• Talking Mac, desktop, “things I can’t talk about” in pipeline. Years ahead, leader in space. Won’t leave price umbrella.
• Talking about currency values now. Snore.
• iTunes upgrades of music to DRM free? Oppenheimer: too soon to tell.
• Very strong growth in music, video, apps
• Walmart for iPhone?
• Cook: Strong partner for iPod, expanded for iPhone. Believe they provide extended reach into areas not hitting before. Pleased with results so far, but early going and not much to report.
• iPhone now being sold in almost 50,000 storefronts in 81 countries. Sizable presence and space.
• Channel inventory, 1.57 million units in inventory last quarter. Apple very conservative in count. 100,000 demos in 50,000 storesfronts, count units in transit from factory not yet for sale. 100,000 units last quarter. Also count inventory all the way to storefront.
• First June quarter with worldwide spread. Saw channel inventory in countries they were in at beginning of Dec. quarter fell at beginning, new countries added net at 80,000. Now 1.83 million units.
• Net net, Apple very comfortable with inventory, people want more.
• What steps Apple taking to ensure iPhone apps can be discovered, different from music discovery?
• Oppenheimer: We include easy to find top 50, 100, paid/free. Expanding genres. Team has done fantastic job making apps easy, fun to discover.
• Any unusual patterns in app sales vs. music?
• Oppenheimer: Hitting 1 billion in 9 months, customers having fun. Games are quite popular. 1 reason why iPod touch has been success.
• Palm Pre?
• Cook: difficult to comment on products not shipping, can’t talk intelligently.
• iPhone sold 21 million, highest satisfaction. Years ahead. Look at business through software platform lens. Benefits Apple and customers. Games to serious medical apps. Power of device and ecosystem is enormous, Apple just scratching surface.
• Talking about margins, education buying season.
• (Free iPod touches with Mac purchase for education again this year?)
• Protecting IP (Palm Pre?!) haven’t seen anything yet? Patent position or waiting for shipment?
• Cook: Think iPhone innovation leading industry by years, competition is great… as long as other companies invent their own stuff.
• That’s it, we’re done!

UPDATE ON RESULTS: Apple has published their results:

• The Company sold 11.01 million iPods during the quarter, representing three percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.
• Quarterly iPhone units sold were 3.79 million representing 123 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

Apple doesn’t break out iPod touch numbers, but last month during the iPhone OS 3.0 event, Apple did say 30 million iPhone OS units were sold, with 17 million being iPhone, leaving 13 million iPod touches on the market… and likely growing.

Original article after the break..

Apple will be reporting their Q2, 2009 financial results today at 5pm EDT/2pm PDT. While often tedious and filled with legally necessitated boilerplate responses, Apple typically discloses iPhone sales figures, App Store numbers, and other related metrics. TiPb likely won’t live-blog the call (which you can listen to via Apple.com if you really want to), but we will update this post any and all iPhone news, especially if we get some rumbling like last quarter‘s veiled legal threats against the Palm Pre…

Remember, it’s all about the profits. Check back later this afternoon/tonight for the updates!

While we wait on Apple’s quarterly results call scheduled for later today, it’s worth noting that the iPhone’s only US carrier just posted their own financials and things are still looking good for our favorite little pocket universe denter:

AT&T said 1.6 million Apple iPhone customers had activated services on the AT&T network during the quarter, more than 40 percent of which were new to the telephone operator.

Some analysts worried that the subsidies AT&T was paying for the iPhone were too costly, others that AT&T was too reliant on the iPhone:

They estimated about three-quarters of [AT&T's] net new monthly bill-paying customers were iPhone users.

[via Jeffdc5 on Twitter]

AT&T reported on their own quarterly earnings today, the highlights according to Fortune (via MacRumors):

• AT&T has activated 4.3 million iPhone 3Gs since its launch, 1.9 million in Q4 alone — more than double its iPhone activations one year earlier.
• The average revenue from Phone users is 60% higher than the typical AT&T customer — thanks to that $30 per month data fee. Their heavy use of Web services helped drive AT&T wireless data use up 51.2% year to year, which as reader Jon in Brentwood, Calif., points out is not necessarily a good thing.
• About 40% of the iPhone activations this quarter were new AT&T customers, either buying their first cellphone or switching from another carrier.
• The churn rate — the percentage of customers who drop AT&T’s service — among iPhone owners is significantly lower than the rest of the network, sharply reducing marketing costs.

They also note that 1.9 million iPhone 3G’s activated in its second quarter on the market is nearly double the 1 million BlackBerry Storm’s activated by Verizon in it’s debut quarter…

We’re listening to Apple’s Q1 conference call, looking for any and all iPhone details in particular to share, and we’ll update as soon as we get them!

• 22.7 Million iPods sold
• iPod touch has been established as outstanding gaming, communication platform.
• 73% of MP3 player market
• 70% in UK and Australia, 50% in Canada
• iTunes record quarter
• App Store tremendous success
• 15,000 apps, 500,000,000 downloads
• 4.4 Million iPhones sold in Q4,
• 13.7 million sold in year (more than the 10 they predicted)
• 70 countries
• Competitors scrambling to catch up
• Years ahead of competition
• 28 billion in the bank
• Plan to open 25 stores in 2009, half internationally
• $199 iPhone a compelling value, nothing else like it in the market
• Not going to play in low-end phone market
• Will look at non-subsidized market and not leaving umbrella
• Loves competition, will suit up against any other smartphone, but won’t stand for anyone ripping off their IP (Tim Cook)
• Call ended!

About the only time Apple updates iPhone sales numbers is during their quarterly conference calls. Last time Steve Jobs himself showed up to crow about the iPhone hitting 10 million ahead of schedule and outselling the BlackBerry. This time? We don’t count on it, but with Steve Jobs, we can never count anything out either.

TUAW says Apple will have this last quarter’s call on Wednesday, January 21 (streaming audio link). TiPb, as per usual, will provide coverage of the event, with focus on the iPhone news.

Mark your calendars, and then jump into the comments and let us know how many iPhones you think have been sold by now, 12 million? What about App Store downloads? Half a billion yet? (Our bet is TiPb commenters get far closer than the analysts who should be popping up any minute now…)

Okay, fair enough, it’s not the nearly 7 million iPhones our big United Statesian brothers to the south consumed in the last quarter, but for a market the size of Canada’s (where it is cold and we must work hard just to survive…), 255,000 iPhones moved is EPIC.

Says Electronista:

The telecoms company sold and activated a total of 255,000 iPhones between the device’s July 11th launch and the end of September, helping the carrier boost its net subscriber additions to 191,000 and increasing the company’s average income per user “considerably above” the average thanks to many attaching a data plan to their services.

Rogers claims that the subsidies they provided for this many iPhones put a drain on them, but thanks to the huge — and ongoing — monthly service plans attached, I don’t think many give a flying hockey puck about that, especially after they just recently cut the commission rates for their reps.

Like in the US, these results are expected to have come at the expense of rival, in this case CDMA, networks Bell and Telus (since Rogers/Fido enjoys a GSM monopoly position).

Could their threat of ending their fairer 30$/6GB data plan last month have helped boost sales? I know roughly 8 people who all got iPhones for just that reason. Anyone else?

Apple is reporting their Q4, 2008 financial results, and while things look good for the Mac, they look great for the iPhone, with 6,892,000 units sold during the 3 month period, up from 1,119,000 in the same quarter last year. And YES! Apple has already made their 10 million iPhone in 2008 goal, with the holiday season still to come. This makes Apple, dollar-for-dollar, the third largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world (after Nokia and Samsung), and Apple has only been in the space since June 2007!

Says Apple CEO, Steve Jobs:

“Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone—we sold more phones than RIM.”

Boom!

Mac’s hit 2.6 million, iPod’s at 11 million (not breakout for iPod Touch, as usual).

Conference call is currently underway (and Steve’s on the call!).

Here are some highlights:

When asked why Apple only had 1 iPhone SKU, Steve replied (paraphrased), Babe Ruth only had 1 home run… he just kept hitting it.

On the same topic, Steve said that while other companies made dozens of different voice units, he believes software was becoming the differentiating factor, and that presenting developers with multiple device versions wasn’t compelling. He also said Apple’s competition didn’t come from software backgrounds like Apple did.

When asked if RIM having around 50% upgrades vs. new users, if the iPhone had a greater number of new users, did that make Apple’s true success against RIM higher, Steve maintained he was happy just to beat RIM on the direct numbers.

No direct US vs. International split for iPhone sales were given.

Just a reminder that Apple will hold their 2008 Q4 Conference Call tomorrow at 2pm PDT/ 5pm EDT, which should include the first full quarter of iPhone sales, and thus those iPhone sales numbers every analyst and their magic 8-ball have been slathering for.

As always, TiPb will be here with coverage of all the highlights (and lowlights, if needed), but we have to remind everyone that, unlike a SteveNote presentation, conference calls are less with the “BOOM!” and more with the drone-like repetition of corporate governance (@$$ coverage), ad naseum infinitum. Tim Cook will likely handle hosting duties, as he did last time.

See you then!

We told you that today’s earnings would be thin on iPhone details and that is definitely the case. Apple’s just posted their 3rd quarter results and the results are: dizzang!

Dig the full results (minus the legal speak) after the break. Here’s the short version: a record number of Macs were sold, just shy of 2.5 million, which works out to about 41% growth year over year, 43% revenue growth. That’s ALottaMacs, friends, and it helped Apple hit a quarterly profit of over a billion dollars on $7.46 billion in revenue — both significant increases over the same quarter last year. Margins were down a hair, but whatev — Apple’s selling Macs, dig?

We can’t wait to see what the financial results are for iPhone sales (they’ll come next quarter), but we have a sneaking suspicion that numbers like these mean that the just-dandy sales for iPhones 2 quarters ago have translated into quite a few people getting interested in replacing a PC with a Mac. As Mac-users ourselves, we welcome you folks to the fold. Are you a recent switcher? Was it the Halo effect? Is your new iPhone 3G spotting a shiny halo that has you thinking Mac for your next purchase?

CUPERTINO, California—July 21, 2008—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 third quarter ended June 28, 2008. The Company posted revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $5.41 billion and net quarterly profit of $818 million, or $.92 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.8 percent, down from 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 42 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 2,496,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing 41 percent unit growth and 43 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11,011,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 12 percent unit growth and seven percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone™ units sold were 717,000 compared to 270,000 in the year-ago-quarter.

“We’re proud to report the best June quarter for both revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We set a new record for Mac sales, we think we have a real winner with our new iPhone 3G, and we’re busy finishing several more wonderful new products to launch in the coming months.”

“We’re extremely pleased with the growth of our business and the generation of almost $5.4 billion in cash in the first three quarters of fiscal 2008,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $7.8 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.00.”

MacRumors is reporting that tonight’s financial results from Apple aren’t going to contain a whole lot of crunchy iPhone goodness. The news is based on a Bloomberg report that points out that Apple’s last quarter ended before the iPhone 2.0 software update was available, Apple doesn’t count those sales towards revenue. Likely if they had, they might have had to go all Sarbanes-Oxley on us and charge for that update. That might be fine for iPod owners, but iPhone owners have had enough of hidden costs lately.

The lack of iPhone info doesn’t look to put much of a damper on the earning call, though, as the high-margin Mac has been selling quite well (especially in laptop form). If you still want to listen in for that, Apple has a webcast set up for 5pm Eastern.

Based on O2′s last quarter earnings report, the iPhone is not only O2′s fastest selling device, is not only setting new records for customer satisfaction, but helped contribute towards a 9.5% increase for the last quarter 2007.

In addition to Apple’s debut mobile device having the lowest return rate among O2′s lineup, it also drove a whopping 30% more revenue per user than the carrier’s average, and helped add 483,000 customers and 276,000 new contracts (roughly 60% of which were nicked from the competition).

Impressive, innit?

But is it enough to help shore up what some see as Apple’s diminished leverage with international carriers, especially with companies like China Mobile which boast hundreds of thousands of unlocked units already on their networks? We’ll see…