The Cupertino-based company Apple has today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter, beating out the predictions and thusly seeing some nice stock price increases. This quarter has seen Apple hit its best results in the history of the company, boasting a rather hefty $1.67 billion profit.
The results, found here, show that Apple managed just short of $10 billion in revenue, at a total of $9.87 billion. Apple sold 3.05 million computers during the quarter, giving it a 17 percent unit increase over the previous Q4 results. Additionally, the company sold 10.2 million iPods and 7.4 million iPhones, representing an eight percent unit decline and a seven percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter, respectively.
CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, stated, "We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter. We"ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010." In addition, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said, "We are delighted with our September quarter and fiscal 2009 results. For the full year, we grew revenue by 12 percent and net income by 18 percent in extraordinarily challenging times. Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $1.70 to $1.78."
On a rather controversial note, Apple COO Tim Cook shared an opinion on the competitors to the iPhone. Apple views the other smartphones on the market as still being behind the original iPhone, with Cook saying that, "We"ve moved beyond that." We"ll leave that last bit up to the opinion of you guys.