Apple today announced financial results for its 13-week fiscal 2013 first quarter ended December 29, 2012. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $54.5 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.1 billion, or $13.81 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $46.3 billion and net profit of $13.1 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share, in the 14-week year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38.6 percent compared to 44.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 61 percent of the quarter's revenue.
Apple sold a record 47.8 million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 37 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold a record 22.9 million iPads during the quarter, compared to 15.4 million in the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.1 million Macs, compared to 5.2 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 12.7 million iPods in the quarter, compared to 15.4 million in the year-ago quarter.
Yet despite record sales in key areas such as the iPhone and iPad, Wall Street has initially hammered Apple's stock after hours. The stock has fallen $55/share to $458, almost an 11% dive. After cooler heads prevail, we may see an adjustment by morning. Apple has provided a PDF of their financials for those wishing to review them in black and white.
As Apple pulls away from using Samsung as their main iPhone and iPad supplier there will understandably be bumps along the road. Wall Street not having any patience in these lean times, use a typical fall back strategy of run for the exits and ask questions later.
As one who has held AAPL stock for many years during the early years of Steve Jobs' return to Apple, I've seen Wall Street react irrationally on countless occasions. It's just the nature of stock markets to over react. They see Gross Margins drop and automatically react, despite the fact that Apple likely had to pay extra overtime due to switching suppliers and having a few glitches getting their new displays suppliers up to speed. These are all justifiable reasons for a slight drop in Gross Margins.
Various reports over the last month have clearly indicated that Apple is still playing catch up with iPad mini and iPhone 5 demand, will be tripling their retail footprint in China and are likely to announce a deal with China Mobile later this year. Despite Apple having juggled ongoing production bumps, they were still able to pull off record sales. So regardless of the noise on Wall Street, Apple had a great quarter and there's excellent growth potenial on the horizon.
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