Reporting its first quarter financial results today, Apple said it sold 22.1 million iPods during the holiday quarter — a 5 percent increase compared to the same quarter last year, and a new single-quarter record for iPod sales. It also sold 2.315 million iPhones in the quarter, bringing the total number of units sold up to around 3.7 million. The company posted revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share, compared with revenue of $7.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share in Q1 2007.
These results best analysts’ predictions, which called for revenue of $9.5 billion and earnings of $1.5 billion, or $1.62 per share. Sales of Other Music Related Products + Services were up 27% over the year-ago quarter, and up 34% from Q4 2007, to $808 million total. That category includes iTunes Store sales, iPod services, and revenues from Apple and third-party iPod accessories.
“We’re thrilled to report our best quarter ever, with the highest revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We have an incredibly strong new product pipeline for 2008, starting with MacBook Air, Mac Pro and iTunes Movie Rentals in the first two weeks.”
“Apple’s revenue grew 35 percent year-over-year to $9.6 billion, an increase of almost $2.5 billion over the previous December quarter’s record-breaking results,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Our strong results produced cash flow from operations of over $2.7 billion during the quarter, yielding an ending cash balance of over $18.4 billion.