Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2012 fiscal first quarter (which ran from September 25, 2011 to December 31, 2011) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. This is the 13th time that I have discussed an Apple quarterly earnings call on iPhone J.D., and over that time I've frequently remarked that Apple had a record-setting quarter, which was true this time as well. Of course the fiscal first quarter is always Apple's best quarter because it includes holiday sales, but this past quarter was something really special for Apple. Not only was it the best quarter in Apple's history, it blew away the previous best quarter. The previous record was announced on July 19, 2011, when Apple revealed sales of $28.57 billion and profit of $7.31 billion in its 2011 fiscal third quarter. Yesterday, Apple announced sales of $46.33 billion and profit of $13.06 billion. This wasn't just an amazing quarter from Apple's perspective, it was an amazing quarter from any company's perspective. David Goldman of CNN reports that this was the second most profitable quarter of any U.S. company ever, behind only ExxonMobil's record-setting $14.8 billion quarter in the Fall of 2008 when oil prices were at an all-time high. Wow.
If you want to hear the full call yourself, you can download it from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha. Apple's official press release is here. Here are the highlights of the call that I think would be of interest to attorneys who use an iPhone or iPad:
- Apple sold a record 37 million iPhones last quarter. That is twice what it sold the same quarter a year ago. Take a look at the first graph in this article by Philip Michaels of Macworld to see just how incredible a quarter this was for iPhone sales.
- iPad sales were a record 15.4 million last quarter.
- What about the iPod touch, the iPhone-without-a-phone? Apple announced that it sold 15.4 million iPods last quarter and indicated that about 10 million of those are the iPod touch.
- To date, "combining the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, we surpassed 315 million cumulative iOS device sales, selling more than 62 million in the December quarter." That is a huge market for app developers.
- Speaking of app developers, there are now over 550,000 apps in the App Store, including 170,000 iPad-specific apps. To date, app developers have made over $4 billion, including over $700 million in the last quarter alone.
- Apple announced that nearly all Fortune 500 companies now approve and support the iPhone and the iPad. "Real estate agents at Coldwell Banker and Sotheby's access sales presentations and use custom iPad apps in the field. Retail chains such as Bed Bath & Beyond use iPads to deliver key business metrics on the sales floor. Wineries are using iPads in their vineyards to call up weather data and soil profiles, record quality assessments and make decisions on the spot about whether to harvest their grapes. And in this past quarter, Chinese airline EVA has also deployed iPads to pilots and crew for flight manuals, documentation and training."
- 85 million people are signed up for iCloud, Apple's system for keeping files in the cloud and syncing them across multiple devices. Apple CEO Tim Cook said that iCloud is "a fundamental shift, recognizing that people had numerous devices and they wanted the bulk of their content in the cloud, and easily accessible from all the devices. And, you know, I think we're seeing the response from that, and with 85 million customers in just 3 months, it is a very, very important part. It's just not a product. It's a strategy for the next decade."
- Apple CEO Tim Cook predicts an incredible future for the iPad, noting that the iPad is "a huge opportunity for Apple over time. And as I've said before, I truly believe, and many others in the company believe, that there will come a day that the tablet market and units is larger than the PC market. In fact, it's interesting to note that in the U.S., it's clear from the IDC's recent data on desktop PCs in the U.S. that tablets exceeded desktop PC sales last quarter in the U.S. And so I think you can already see different indicators that there is significant momentum in this space."
