Strong holiday season Mac and iPhone sales have propelled Apple to another quarter that other technology vendors could be excused for viewing with a pathological degree of envy.
In Apple's fiscal first quarter earnings call Monday, company executives gleefully revealed that Apple sold 3.36 million Macs during the period, a 33 percent unit increase in Mac sales from the year-ago quarter.
Mac sales were "absolutely spectacular" in some countries, with Italy, France, Switzerland and Spain all racking up 40 percent or more sales increases during the quarter, Apple COO Tim Cook said in the call. Mac sales rose 70 percent in Australia and 100 percent in China, Cook said.
Apple also sold 8.7 million iPhones, representing 100 percent unit growth from the year-ago quarter, and a healthy uptick from the 7.4 million iPhones sold during the previous quarter.
In a Q&A session, Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray senior analyst, asked Apple executives whether the company is satisfied with the exclusive iPhone distribution it has with AT&T, and contrary to AT&T customer sentiment, Cook said everything is hunky dory.
"AT&T is a great partner," Cook said. "It's important to remember that [AT&T has] more mobile broadband users than any other carrier in the world. In the vast majority of locations, we think iPhone customers are having a great experience."
Recent scuttlebutt has been that AT&T may lose its iPhone exclusivity, but Cook said Apple is confident that AT&T will respond to customers' complaints in a satisfactory manner. "AT&T has acknowledged having some issues in certain cities, and they have detailed plans for addressing these. We have personally reviewed these and have very high confidence that they will make progress in fixing them," Cook said.
Apple's iPhone figures boomed in part because the company started selling the iPhone in China, South Korea, and other new markets during the quarter. Apple has also changed its accounting for the iPhone to book revenue and profit when devices are sold, as opposed to calculating these over the device's estimated lifetime.
Cook and Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer also fielded several questions pertaining to Apple's "new creation" -- a new product set for a Jan. 27 unveiling what, from most accounts, will be some sort of tablet device. Cook and Oppenheimer deflected these queries with well-practiced ease, telling analysts to "stay tuned".
Overall, Apple pulled in revenue of $15.68 billion during the quarter along with net profit of $3,38 billion, or $3.67 per share. That's up from the $11.88 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.26 billion Apple reported during the year ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.9 percent, compared to 37.9 percent during the year-ago quarter.
"If you annualize our quarterly revenue, its surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we're really excited about."
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