Apple Net Jumps 134% to $131.8 Million

Citing strong foreign sales and its cost-cutting efforts, personal computer pioneer Apple Computer said Wednesday that profits in its second quarter rose 134% to $131.8 million on a revenue jump of about 8%.

For the period ended March 31, sales were $1.34 billion, compared to $1.24 billion a year ago. Profits in the prior-year period were $56.3 million.

Apple’s performance surprised most analysts who had projected earnings about 10% to 20% lower. “It’s a blowout number,” Dean Witter Reynolds analyst Eugene Glazer said.

In February, the Cupertino-based company laid off about 400 workers, about 3% of its work force, because its sales had stalled and costs were rising quickly.

Apple Chairman and Chief Executive John Sculley singled out the company’s surging international sales, noting that foreign activity accounted for 47% of total sales in the period, compared with 40% a year ago.

Sculley said that while he is optimistic about international demand for the rest of the fiscal year, he remains cautious regarding sales growth in the United States. Early this year he cut the company’s 1990 revenue growth projections in half to 10% based on signals that the U.S. computer market was slowing.