Apple “disappoints” with nearly $9BN profits for Q3; TV business grows

Editor | 25-07-2012

When you set the bar high judgement is severe and Apple has disappointed some in Wall Street with quarterly revenue of $35.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.8 billion for its fiscal 2012 third quarter ended 30 June 2012.
That said for the quarter, the company shipped ‘only’ 26 million iPhone related products, down 9 million on the previous quarter but up 6 million on the same quarter in 2011. The Q3 shipments amassed $16.24 billion, yet this figure was $22.69 billion in the previous quarter. Analysts believe that iPhone shipments have been hit by users waiting for the arrival of the iPhone 5 sometime in the third quarter of 2012.
The iPad continued on its steep upward trajectory with 17 million units shipped in Q3 compared with 11.8 million in Q2 2012 and 9.2 million in Q3 2011. In terms of revenue from shipments these amounted to $9.17 billion for Q3 2012 compared with $6.5 billion for Q2 2012 and $6.046 billion for Q3 2011.
“We’re thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall (sic). We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.”
With such stratospheric numbers, Apple’s TV business seems like very small potatoes but the company revealed that it had sold 1.3 million Apple TV units in the quarter, up 170% year on year, meaning sales of over 4 million boxes of the product line for the year to date. Even though he told financial analysts in a conference call admitted that the TV business was still at ‘hobby’ stage, Cook reiterated the company’s position on TV saying: “There's a lot of people here that are believers in Apple TV. We continue to invest in it and see where takes us…we think it will lead us somewhere.”