Yesterday, Apple announced its 2009 Fiscal Fourth Quarter results. If you want to replay it, you can download it from iTunes or you can read the transcript provided by Seeking Alpha. Here is
the significant iPhone news from the conference call, which came from Apple's Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer, and Apple's Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook.
This was one of Apple's best quarters ever. The company reported revenue of $9.87 billion, its second highest quarter ever. And this wasn't even the first fiscal quarter, the quarter which contains Christmas and is always Apple's best quarter. The company is doing very, very well.
- Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones this past quarter, the most that Apple has ever sold in any quarter. The previous record had been held by last year's fiscal fourth quarter, which was the quarter following the introduction of the iPhone 3G and the huge increase in the number of countries selling iPhones. As Tim Cook said, "the popularity of the iPhone 3GS has been phenomenal. We were very surprised by the demand."
- Apple probably could have sold even more iPhones because demand exceeded supply. Oppenheimer said that around the world, there were not enough iPhone 3GS units available for sale, so Apple ramped up supply in September and started to meet the demand in October. One analyst asked Apple to predict how many iPhones Apple would have shipped if it had kept up with demand. Tim Cook responded that there is really no way to answer that. "You know, that’s a very tough question to answer because unfortunately we can't run the experiment both ways. What I know is that for almost the entire quarter, until we got into September, the iPhone 3GS was short virtually everywhere. What I don’t know is how many people waited until it was available versus bought a competitive phone and there’s just—there is not a good way to tell that." In total, Apple sold almost 21 million iPhones in its 2009 fiscal year.
- Another analyst asked how iPhones are selling in the corporate market versus the consumer market. Cook responded that there is a strong demand for iPhones by employees, so Apple has been upgrading the iPhone to add features that the technology departments at corporations are requiring to allow their employees to get iPhones. Indeed, this is a reason for several of the features added in the iPhone 3GS. As a result, over 50% of the Fortune 100 companies now deploy the iPhone or, at least, have test pilot programs in place. Cook also noted that a number of government agencies are using the iPhone. Similarly, in Europe, about 50% of the Financial Times 100 companies are using iPhones.
Apple continues to say that there are over 85,000 apps in the App Store, a number that Apple first announced back in mid-September. I was a little surprised that Apple didn't update that number as I'm sure that the number is over 90,000 by now. Perhaps Apple is just waiting for the number to top 100,000 before making its next announcement on the number of apps available, which I expect will happen in November. Similarly, Oppenheimer said that there have been over 2 billion apps downloaded, the same number announced back in September.
- On October 30th, Apple will begin selling the iPhone in China, which presents the opportunity for a huge increase in international sales. Oppenheimer wouldn't predict how many iPhones will be sold in China, but he did say that Apple noticed that many of the older models of the iPhones have ended up in China so there is clearly demand, plus China is "a huge market, the largest market in the world in terms of total phones."
- The iPhone 3G already sells in over 80 countries, and by the end of 2009 the iPhone 3GS will also sell in over 80 countries. The iPhone 3GS was shipping in 64 countries as of the end of September, 2009.