Analysts expected Apple to announce impressive quarterly earnings yesterday. The surprise was just how impressive those earning were. Most people expected something in the range of $5.73 to $5.82 per share, when in fact, the earnings were $7.79 a share. This made for 3Q reported income of $7.31 billion, over double last year’s reported income for the quarter, which came to just $3.25 billion.
While iPhones and iPads did exceedingly well, the big surprise was the 28 percent increase in the number of home computers sold. That, plus the 20.3 million iPhones (up 142 percent) and 9.25 million iPads (up 183 percent) that the company sold last quarter alone, accounted for revenues of $28.6 billion, 82 percent higher than last year. The only disappointment was the iPod, which sold 20 percent less than expected, at just 7.54 million units.
With the rumored release of the iPhone 5 in September and of the new Lion operating system today, the company, now valued at $400 billion, can only grow stronger.
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