Apple posts $106 million profit on strong iPod sales
October 13, 2004 - 16:33 PDT   Apple on Wednesday posted a net profit of US$106 million, or 26 cents a share, for its fiscal 2004 fourth quarter ended September 25. These results compare to a net profit of $44 million, or 12 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $2.35 billion, up 37 percent from last year. Apple said it shipped 836,000 Macs and 2,016,000 iPods during the quarter, representing a 6 percent increase in CPU units and a 500 percent increase in iPods over the year-ago quarter.

Gross margin was 27 percent, up from 26.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. Apple said international sales accounted for 37 percent of the quarter's revenue. The quarter's results include an after-tax restructuring charge of $4 million. Excluding this charge, Apple said its net profit for the quarter would have been $110 million, or 27 cents per diluted share.

For the year, Apple reported net income of $276 million on revenue of $8.28 billion compared to net income of $69 million on revenue of $6.21 billion in 2003.

"We are thrilled to report our highest fourth quarter revenue in nine years," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We shipped over 2 million iPods, our retail store revenue grew 95 percent year-over-year, and the new iMac G5 has received phenomenal reviews and is off to a great start."

"We're pleased to report 37 percent revenue growth for the quarter and operating margin above 5 percent," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2005, we expect revenue of between $2.8 and $2.9 billion, operating margin above 7 percent and earnings per diluted share of 39 to 42 cents."

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