Apple Q4 '11 financials - $6.62 billion quarterly profit

Apple has released its Q4 '11 financials and announced $6.62 billion quarterly profits.

Here are the highlights:

• Revenue of $28.27 billion (compared to $20.34 billion for year-ago quarter - analysts had been expecting $29.7 billion, but my guess is that analysts numbers were based on the expectation of a June release for the iPhone)
• Profits of $6.62 billion (compared to $4.31 billion for year-ago quarter)
• Operating margins represent 38% of revenue
• 17.07 million iPhones sold - 21% up on year-ago quarter - iPhone sales down on the last two quarters, most likely because consumers were waiting for the new release - Apple says this decline was expected
• 11.12 million iPads sold - 166% up on year-ago quarter - that makes almost 40 million iPads sold since launch
• 4.89 million Macs sold - 26% up on year-ago quarter - 6x IDC's most recent forecast of 6% growth for PCs in the quarter
• 6.62 million iPods sold - 27% decline on year-ago quarter - iPod share of US MP3 players is still over 70% according to NPD
• iTunes Store generated record results with revenue of $1.5 billion - 16 billion songs and 650 million TV shows downloaded to date

A couple of quotes:

Tim Cook, CEO

“We are thrilled with the very strong finish of an outstanding fiscal 2011, growing annual revenue to $108 billion and growing earnings to $26 billion. Customer response to iPhone 4S has been fantastic, we have strong momentum going into the holiday season, and we remain really enthusiastic about our product pipeline.”

Peter Oppenheimer, CFO

“We are extremely pleased with our record September quarter revenue and earnings and with cash generation of $5.4 billion during the quarter. Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 14 weeks rather than 13, we expect revenue of about $37 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $9.30.”

Note: Apple is being punished for missing analyst's targets in after-hours trading.