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Apple reports a stellar quarter

Thanks to the success in the US of the iPhone, Apple has reported record revenues, with good news also for Mac sales
Written by Tom Krazit, Contributor and  Colin Barker, Contributor

Apple sold 1.1 million iPhones during its fourth quarter, the company said in its results statement on Monday.

This brought total sales of the iPhone to 1.39 million since its launch and pushed the company's revenue to $6.22m (£3.04m) for the quarter.

The good news was not solely to do with the iPhone, however, as the company also reported shipping 2.1 million Mac computers, representing 34 percent growth over the fourth quarter of 2006. Apple "exceeded the previous quarterly record for Mac shipments by 400,000", the company said in the statement.

Adding to the all-round good news, Apple also said it sold 10.2m iPods during the quarter, which represents 17 percent growth over the same quarter last year.

Apple's chief executive, Steve Jobs, expressed his pleasure with the results. "We are very pleased to have generated over $24bn in revenue and $3.5bn in net income in fiscal 2007," he said in the statement.  "We're looking forward to a strong December quarter as we enter the holiday season with Apple's best products ever."

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer, also revealed further good news for the company. "Apple ended the fiscal year with $15.4bn in cash and no debt. Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $9.2bn," he said.

The iPhone price cut, which Apple made in September and which was controversial with early adopters, aided sales. As of 10 September, shortly after the price cut, Apple said it had sold one million iPhones in total. After the price was cut from $599 to $399, and the $499 4GB iPhone disappeared, Apple sold almost 400,000 iPhones in 18 days, or more than a quarter of all the iPhones sold to date.

The iPhone is due to be launched in the UK on 9 November.

Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, confirmed the company expects to sell 10 million iPhones in the 2008 calendar year, but he didn't set a target for the holiday quarter. It took Apple two years to sell around 1.4 million iPods in the early days of that product, he said.

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