By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
Apple's making money. Lots of it.
The iPhone and iPad maker posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 44.7 percent compared to 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter.
International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”
Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads and 5.3 million Macs during the quarter, increases of 154 percent, 111 percent, and 26 percent from last year. That's 4.4 iPhones every second for 14 weeks which is staggering considering that the iPhone 4S is only now starting to be made available to some markets such as China.
“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”