Apple Posts 5th Consecutive Quarterly Profit
Apple Computer Inc. on Wednesday posted its fifth consecutive quarterly profit as strong sales of its iMac computers helped boost earnings above Wall Street expectations.
Apple said its net income more than tripled to $152 million, or 95 cents a share on a diluted basis, from $47 million, or 33 cents, in the year-ago quarter. Excluding one-time gains, Apple’s per-share earnings were 78 cents, compared with the Wall Street consensus of 70 cents, according to First Call Corp.
Apple said that, excluding a one-time after-tax gain of $29 million from the sale of 2.9 million shares of ARM Holdings, its net income for the quarter would have been $123 million. Revenue rose to $1.71 billion from $1.58 billion.
The Cupertino-based computer company, which lost market share for much of the decade, is turning around under interim Chief Executive Steve Jobs’ push to cut costs and create new products such as the iMac, unveiled in August. First-quarter iMac sales totaled 519,000 and helped Apple produce its first year-over-year revenue increase since the first quarter of 1996.
“Unit growth year-over-year was three to four times higher than the industry average,” Jobs said in a statement.
“In addition, Apple ended the quarter with only two days of inventory, besting industry-leading Dell’s seven days of inventory.”
Apple shares rose 38 cents to close at $46.50 on Nasdaq. Earnings were released after the close of U.S. trading.
At a Glance
Other earnings, excluding one-time gains and charges unless noted:
* Motorola Inc., the No. 2 maker of cellular phones, said fourth-quarter profit fell a less-than-expected 60% as it boosted phone sales and cut 2,000 more workers than planned.
The company earned $159 million, or 26 cents a share, down from a profit before charges of $393 million, or 65 cents, in the year-earlier period. Motorola was expected to earn 23 cents, according to First Call Corp. Sales were little changed at $8.34 billion, compared with $8.28 billion in 1997.
* Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp.’s biggest rival, reported fourth-quarter profit that fell short of forecasts as a production glitch kept it from shipping more higher-priced chips for PCs. Sunnyvale based AMD said net income was $22.3 million, or 15 cents a share, contrasted with a loss of $12.3 million, or 9 cents, in the year-earlier period. AMD was expected to earn 19 cents, the average estimate of analysts polled by First Call Corp. Sales rose 29% to $788.8 million from $613.2 million.
AMD said a manufacturing problem kept it from shipping more of its faster, higher-priced chips during the quarter, which cut sales. Many analysts had expected AMD to report better results because the personal computer market is booming, with retail PC sales jumping 41% in December.
