Apple reported a record $6bn in quarterly profit and voiced confidence in its strategy a day after announcing that its iconic chief executive, Steve Jobs, was taking an open-ended leave of absence for undisclosed medical reasons.
Apple shares fell more than 2 per cent on Tuesday, when US trading resumed for the first time since the company had said that Mr Jobs would go on leave and quoted him saying that he hoped to return “as soon as I can”.
Apple's announcement of Steve Jobs' medical leave just one day before releasing its Q1 financial results struck us as well-planned yesterday, and here we are: if Cupertino's record $6 billion profit on a record $26.7 billion in revenue isn't enough to turn that frown -- and stock slide -- upside down, well, nothing else will. iPhone 4 sales were predictably strong through the holidays, clocking in at a record 16.2m units, or up 86 percent from last year, while Mac sales went up 23 percent to a record 4.13m and iPod sales were stronger than expected at 19.45m, a seven percent decline. As for the iPad, Apple's tablet had its second straight dominant quarter, with record sales of 7.33 million -- some 3 million more than the Mac. Apple's financial call with new acting CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer is scheduled to start at 5PM EST -- check after the break for our usual liveblog while you're listening live on Apple's site.
0 comments:
Post a Comment