Apple presented the numbers for the last quarter in the days that passed and against expectations in this depressing times, Apple presented a positive result with a profit of $1.61 billion. These numbers surprised many and was a continued increase by 2% year-to-year. The increase may be small, but just the fact that it is an increase in these times shows how strong Apple has been.
The increased profit has several explanations. The iPod sales was up by 3% to 22.7 million units, while the sales of Mac computers was up by 9%, but the sales of stationary Macs dropped by 25%, which was overshadowed by the strong MacBook sales that increased by 34%. The same trend can be seen at many other companies. Surprisingly, the iPhone sales dropped by nearly 40%., but then again Apple still sold 13.7 million iPhones in 2008, which is a lot higher than the goal of 10 million.
The future outlooks presented by Apple was that the marginal per sold unit, which was 34% in the last quarter, is expected to drop in the year to come. Apple remained strong though and said that the company ”[is] not going to play in the low end”, which means that the longed for Apple netbook ain’t coming.
This was overall very positive news for Apple which has been going through some rough terrain after the eternal CEO Steve Jobs had to go on sick leave about two weeks ago. He will be away until June at least and right now the company is managed by Tim Cook. Jobs still claims that he will remain a part of important strategic decisions.
