Apple held their Q4 2011 conference call today and as usual announced a ton of numbers pertaining to revenue, profit, sales, and more.

Revenue

• $28.7 billion in Q4 revenue
• $6.62 billion in Q4 net profit
• $7.05 per diluted share
• $81.6 billion available cash
• $54 billion in cash held off-shore
• Apple set a $37 billion guidance for fiscal Q1 (holiday)

Huge amount of cash, but not as much as Wall Street wanted, and get ready for the dividends questions again.

iOS

• 25 million iOS device sold in Q4
• 250 million iOS device sales to date (cumulative)

iPhone

• 17.1 million iPhones sold in Q4
• iPhone sales up 21% year over year
• iPhone 4S available in 7 countries, 22 more on their way
• 93% of Fortune 500 deploying or testing iPhones
• 60% of Global 500 deploying or testing iPhones

This doesn’t include the 4 million iPhone 4S sold opening weekend, but does include a slow down in sales Apple attributes to all the rumors of a new iPhone coming out. (Um… yeah!)

iPad

• 11.12 million iPads sold in Q4
• iPad 2 available in 90 countries
• 52% of Global 500 deploying or testing iPads

Margins aren’t as high for the iPad as for the iPhone so even great iPad (and Mac) sales can’t make up for lower iPhone sales.

iPod

• 6.6 million iPod sales sold in Q4
• 3.3 million iPod touch sold in Q4 (50% of iPod sales)
• iPod still has more than 70% share in U.S. 10 years after introduced

17.1 million iPhones, 11.1 million iPads, and… 3.3 million iPod touches? Maybe questions about cannibalization shouldn’t have been focused on Mac?

App Store and iTunes

• 18 billion App Store downloads
• 180 million iBookstore downloads
• 16 billion songs downloaded from iTunes

App Store downloads have surpassed iTunes Store downloads. And they’re not slowing down. iBooks on the other hand remain a “hobby.”

Mac

• 6 million Lion downloads, since its release this summer
• 4.89 million Macs sold in Q4

Nice little side business…

Retail Stores

• $10.7 million average revenue per Apple Store
• $108 billion in revenue for fiscal year, 66% growth over FY10
• 77.5 million Apple Store visits in Q4
• 16% of Apple’s revenue came from China
• 500,000 apps available on the App Store, available in 23 countries
• 13% of Apple’s revenue from retail
• 357 Apple Stores world-wide
• $3.6 billion in revenue from Apple Stores
• Apple plans to add 40 new Apple Stores next Q, 3/4 outside of U.S.
• All five stores combined in China have the most traffic
• 30 new Apple stores were added in Q4

Yeah, despite cranky Wall Street types, I think it’s safe to say that Apple is doing just fine.

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]

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…

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.

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!