Apple's Financials Skyrocket in Q1 2005 Report--$3.5 Billion in Revenue with a Profit of $295 Million

Yesterday, Apple reported the best financial quarter ever in the history of the company in many ways. The earnings of $3.49 billion (up 74% from $2.01 billion in Q1 2004) and net profit of $295 million (up 468% from 63 million in Q1 2004) for the first quarter of the 2005 fiscal year were the highest for any quarter in the history of the company. The gross margin was up to 28.5 per cent from 26.7 per cent. International sales stood at 41 per cent of total. The earnings of $0.70 per share blew away last Friday's Thomson First Call's analysts consensus estimate of $0.48 and the more recently increased consensus estimate of $0.55. Apple's cash account and short term investments now stand at a very robust $6.5 billion.

Apple shipped an incredible 1,046,000 Macs and 4,580,000 iPods from October 1 through December 31, 2004, a 26 per cent increase in Macs and a 525 per cent increase in iPods over the first quarter of the previous year. Here are the results by Mac category:

Unit Sales in 1,000's

Mac	Q1 '05	Q1 '04	% Change
iMac/eMac	456	227	101
iBook	271	201	35
PowerMac/Xserve	167	206	-19
PowerBook	152	195	-22
Mac Subtotal	1046	829	26
iPod	4580	733	525

The "consumer" Mac sales improved substantially, especially the iMac G5/eMac line. During the keynote address, Steve jobs stated that during the first quarter of FY2005 the iMac G5 became the best selling Mac in the company's history. The sales of "professional" Macs declined as their power and features essentially stagnated during the last year.

The sales for all regions were up and all but Japan were up significantly in excesss of 20 per cent. Apple Store retail sales were up to $561 million as compared with $273 million in the same quarter a year ago, a 105 per cent improvement.

Apple's stock price rose to a near company high of $74 per share in after hours trading, according to this Reuters article, [Dana Baggett] beating last Friday's after hours high of $70.70 and Wednesday's close of $65.46.

The conference call following the release of the financial report was unusual in that nothing else of much substance was mentioned according to summary reports on several web sites including MacNN. [Bill Fox]