PANTONE Color Cue 2 released for Graphics Designers

Pantone released its award-winning handheld color identification device, PANTONE Color Cue 2, now includes nearly 4,000 new colors for significantly increased color matching capabilities to empower designers across the graphic arts, fashion, home, architect and interior design industries. A portable, affordable, single device, Color Cue 2 allows users to toggle across multiple PANTONE Libraries to identify color inspirations and match them to PANTONE Colors wherever they go.

PANTONE Color Cue 2 is available immediately for $349 on the Pantone Web site and through select distribution partners. [Bill Fox]

[10/23] Apple reported most profitable Q4 and highest Mac sales ever, Earnings beat Analysts' Estimate by 17+ percent

Apple had an outstanding fourth quarter of their 2007 fiscal year (Q4 2007) posting a $904 million net profit, its highest fourth quarter profit ever. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at 101 cents on revenue of $6.22 billion, busting the Thomson Financial analysts' consensus estimate of 86 cents by over 17 percent (see chart at right). Gross margin was up to a very remarkable 33.6 percent and cash on hand and short term investments now total $15.4 billion, up from $13.8 billion last quarter. Compared with last year's fourth quarter (Q4 2006), Q4 2007 is up 67 per cent in net profit, up 29 per cent in revenue, up 63 percent in earnings per share and up 15 per cent in gross margin.

This terrific financial performance was driven largely by increased sales of Macs by 34 percent and increased sales of iPods by 17 percent over Q4 2006. The growth rate in Macs sales continued to exceed the industry average resulting in an increase in market share. The sales of Macs reached 2,164,000, the highest of any quarter on record by over 400,000 units.

Sales of Apple notebooks, the MacBook and MacBook Pro, were 1,347,000 or some 62 percent of total Mac sales. The notebook sales were up 37 percent from Q4 2006.

Desktop (iMac, Mac mini, Mac Pro and Xserve) sales at 817,000 were up 31 percent from Q4 2006. Apple executives ascribed the improved desktop performance to the recent introduction of the aluminum iMacs.

iPod sales reached 10,200,000, up 17 percent from Q4 2006. Apple TV sales are lumped in the "Other music" category which showed a 33 percent increase over Q4 2006.

iPhone sales for Q4 2007 were 1,119,000, up from 270,000 for the few days of Q3 2007.

Regionally, sales revenue was up over Q4 2006 in two geographical areas (Americas and Europe) by 25 and 36 percent but down 11 percent in Japan. The Apple retail stores are still doing well. Sales revenue increased 42 percent over Q4 2006. New-to-Mac sales continue to be over 50 percent of their sales according to Apple executives. Apple now has a total of 197 retail stores.

A few other interesting tidbits came out during Apple's late afternoon analysts' conference call (replay it here) with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and COO Tim Cook answering questions:

Apple's expanding relationship with Best Buy is continuing from 230 stores today to 270 by the end of the calendar year.

While last quarter Apple executives stated that there was "absolutely no evidence" so far that the iPhone is cannibalizing iPod sales, Cook's reply yesterday was was a feint in stating that more information would be forthcoming in Apple's report on Q1 2008.

Apple's pro products in video and audio are showing incredible growth.

Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" will run on some 21 million Macs shipped over the past four years. In comparison, Tiger ran on 15 million installed Macs when it shipped.

Apple's first quarter is typically its best because of the holiday season.

"Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $9.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.42," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO.

Here is Apple's press release. [Bill Fox]