Kibbles & Bytes Blog

Apple posted revenues of $28.7 billion and a net profit for the quarter of $6.62 billion. This being the last quarter of their fiscal year, Apple’s annual revenue was an astounding $108.25 billion with a new profit for the year of $25.92 billion. This is a real milestone for the company as it is the first $100-billion year. I remember when Apple was struggling to do $5 billion. These are simply spectacular numbers, especially if you consider that just one year ago the company posted their best year ever with $65 billion in sales and $14 billion in net profit.

Apple has over $81.5 billion in cash and marketable securities and posted gross margins of over 40%. While Apple’s revenue is driven by a combination of their business units–with iPhone, iPad and the iTunes Store being huge contributors–Apple shipped a record 4.89 million Macs during the quarter, an increase of 26% over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone unit sales reached 17.07 million, up 21% from the year-ago quarter, and the company also sold 6.62 million iPods during the quarter.

Mac sales were off the charts and well beyond expectations and predictions. iPad sales were about spot-on predictions; however, iPod and iPhone sales were below analysts’ estimates. I think the iPod numbers will continue to decline as more and more iPhones and iPads, which allow you to have your music on a multiple-function device, are sold. The introduction of the iPhone 4S did depress sales a bit going into the last part of the quarter, however, the new iPhone 4S has already smashed record sales. I know that we have sold through all of our initial allocation in a blink of an eye and supplies are now a bit constrained.

The Mac sales numbers were higher than the last holiday season and a 27% increase over the same quarter last year. Apple’s numbers for computer sales are four times the growth rate for PCs in general.

Apple gave guidance for their first quarter of expected revenue of $37 billion and earnings per diluted share of $9.30. This is very strong guidance, and Apple has an exceptionally strong product line going into the holiday quarter.

These financial results are very strong in a down economy, and the fact that Apple did not exceed the guesses of some semi-informed Wall Street analysts does not take the shine off of these spectacular results. Apple is firing on all cylinders, and the legacy of Steve Jobs will be that Apple continues to prosper and provide us with tools that give us the most precious gift of all: time. Congratulations to Apple on another record-breaking quarter!

I got a lot of feedback from “*last week’s Mac Treat*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/kibbles/kb745/ regarding where to find the exact location for the “restore windows” preference.

Here’s where to find it:
*System Preferences > General > “Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps”*

Thanks for all who wrote in, and sorry for the confusion!

This Mac Treat is similar to one of our “*previous treats,*”:http://blog.smalldog.com/kibbles/kb584/ but with some added nuggets.

One of my favorite features in Spotlight is the ability to pose a calculation (e.g. 5,608 * 72) and it will retrieve the Calculator for you as a top hit. (Just enter the numbers you want to add, subtract, multiply or divide by using the standard mathematical symbols of +, -, * and / in the Spotlight window.)

Here’s an updated bonus for those of you with Lion: Now when you do a Spotlight search, it offers a ‘web searches’ option in the search results. If chosen, your default web browser will option with said search entered.

You can also now drag and drop files out of your search results. (Yippee!) In order to preview an item in your search results, select and hold the Command key. Additionally, hold down the Command key (with the preview window open) to display an info bar at the bottom of the window.

_Dear Friends,_

Twenty-eight hours of traveling later, I am back in the Green Mountains and the dogs were the only ones awake when I got home at about 2AM. It is hard to believe that I started the day in Hong Kong on the other side of the planet.

I had a productive trip to Miami and then to Hong Kong and into China to Shenzhen and Dongguan. The trade shows were crowded, and it is a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack to find innovative products and sort out which companies are the manufacturers of unique products and which ones are simply brokers.

One of our responsibilities is to visit the factories of the companies we purchase from to verify working conditions and assure that we have a personal connection at these companies. It is also the best way to separate the fly-by-night traders from the true manufacturers of goods.

You will be seeing some new products from “*Chill Pill Audio*”:http://chillpillaudio.com/ and “*Hammerhead*”:http://www.hammerheadcase.com/ over the next several weeks that are a result of this trip. I want to thank our man in China, Simon Liao, both for his hospitality and his diligence in assuring that we are only purchasing quality products from companies that will stand behind the goods.

I have had a couple of customers question why we source products in China. I understand the sentiment, and believe me I would love to source products here in the USA; however, it would not be possible to be price competitive, as the manufacturing center of the world is now in China.

Many of the factories in China remind me of factories in the USA in the ’50s and earlier. The production lines in the factories I visited are clean and well ventilated, and while the work appears monotonous to me, the workers seem to be happy. Most are younger workers who stay in the dormitories near the factories and send much of their wages home to their families. I think that as we see the middle class and standard of living rise in China, the demand for higher wages will also impact the manufacturing base there as well.

I saw newspaper articles while I was there that talked about how inflation and higher wages are forcing manufacturers to move production to other Asian countries such as Vietnam. We look around the world–and especially in the USA–for new products, but the reality is that most manufacturing of commodity products is not competitively done in the USA.

It is good to be back in Vermont where the trees have already lost most of their leaves and the smell of fall is definitely in the air. I am thinking about snow tires and putting the motorcycles up for the upcoming winter, but there is always time for one last ride if the sun shines.