Apple Paves the Street

Apple sold a record 3,470,000 Macs during the three months ending in June. This helped to generate $3,250,000,000 in profits (I like seeing all those zeros!). This represents a 77% year over year growth in Mac sales! I guess all those prophets of doom saying that the Mac was neglected for iOS4 and the iPad just don’t get it.

Add in the 8,400,000 iPhones, 9,410,000 iPods and an astounding 3,270,000 iPads and you have $15,700,000,000 of sales! The biggest increase in sales came from the Asia/Pacific region with 71% overall growth but the big news is that Mac sales saw double digit growth in each geographic area.

Apple hoarded another $4 billion in cash, swelling their war chest to over $45.8 billion of nickels and dimes hanging out. I guess giving away a few iPhone cases is not going to make much of a dent in that cache. When asked about “antennagate” and the impact on sales of the iPhone, Tim Cook simply answered, “Let me be very clear: We are selling every unit we can make.”

The Mac Business

Apple smashed the old 3-month sales record by 100,000 Macs by posting a 33% year-over-year increase. There is a move towards mobility with increases in laptops sold versus desktops, a trend that Apple has recognized very early on and has planned well for with significant offerings in the portable market.

The iPhone Business

Over 60 percent of the Fortune 500 are deploying the iPhone and 400 higher education institutions have approved it. With over 8.4 million sold in the three months, this is a healthy business for Apple. Over 5 billion apps were downloaded from the Apple App store.

With the transition to the iPhone 4, there were greatly reduced shipments in June; however, Apple still ended the quarter with a 61% growth in sales and it was over 90% if you factor in the model change.

Returns for the iPhone 4 are running below that for the iPhone 3GS and there has been no impact on sales due to all the publicity about the antenna.

The iPad Business

I can speak first hand about this one. We are selling every single iPad we can get our hands on with a high degree of customer satisfaction. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: with these numbers, Apple doesn’t need computer business market share if they can continue to simply create new markets.

Apple sold over $2 billion in iPads and would have sold even more had they had more to sell. One thing that Tim Cook is really good at is supply chain logistics and planning. He said that Apple is still “quoting longer lead times than we’d like, and we’re working around the clock to get supply and demand in balance… in the scheme of things, it’s a good problem to have.” He said sales have been positive in every country they’ve released it in thus far. Anecdotally, he believes it’s already beyond an “early adopter” phase. “I think it’s extremely unique and extremely successful.”

The iPod Business

The iPod touch is the hero here with some declines in the overall iPod business but a very strong 48% increase in iPod touch sales year-over-year. The iPod maintains a 70% market share and is the top selling MP3 player internationally.

The Retail Side

I don’t like to talk too much about the Apple retail side of the business because, they are, after all, our competition, but Apple retail had a good quarter, too. Sales were up 73% and Apple opened seven new stores in the quarter, making a total of 280 stores with average revenue per store around $9 million (per quarter!).

During the summer construction season, in preparation for the holidays, Small Dog Electronics will open one store (by contrast, Apple will open 24 stores internationally this quarter).

The greatest story in American business lore continues as Apple continues its streak of posting record earnings, but more importantly, continues its streak of producing a steady stream of products that are in the vanguard of design and functionality.

Congratulations to the entire Apple team—what an awesome quarter of success!

Image credit: www.marshallart.com