iPhone 4 antennagate worries increase sales by 91%
For months the media have been saying that the antennagate affair would have a serious affect on iPhone sales, and the results from Apple’s latest quarter revenue results, show it has, but not in the way everyone thought.
Apple reported it’s highest ever quarterly revenue and earnings, and iPhone sales have gone through the roof, with a 91% growth in iPhone sales to a staggering 14.1 million units sold.
Highlights of the quarterly revenue results ended September 25, 2010 were
- Revenue of US$20.34 billion up 29%
- Profit US$4.31 billion – up 67%
- iPads sold 4.19 million – up by 23%
- iPhone sales 14.1 million up 91%
- Macs sold 3.89 million 27% up
Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs also used the results to boast a little – well you would wouldn’t you – and to have a go at the competition.
Jobs had a got at RIM first, claiming that “we’ve now passed RIM and I don’t see them catching up.” Adding that it would be “a challenge for them (RIM) to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform.” Presumably he counted the other two as Apple and Google’s Android mobile operating systems.
At which point he had, a half-hearted and messy go at Google. “Last week Eric [Schmidt, Google’s CEO] reiterated they are activating 200,000 Android devices per day… For comparison Apple has activated around 275,000 devices per day,” said Jobs.
Jobs then spoke about the fragmented Android market was, using an example of one app developer who said it had to deal with more than 100 different versions of Android software on 244 different handsets. “Open systems don’t always win,” Jobs said, adding that the real issue was “what’s best for the customer, fragmented versus integrated.”Get back in the knife draw Steve.
Jobs also had no love for anyone bringing out 7 inch format tablet devices, claiming that seven inches “isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps in our opinion… Given that all users will already have a smartphone in their pockets, giving up precious display area to fit a tablet in our pocket is clearly the wrong tradeoff.”
Grabbing attention again, Jobs added mysteriously: “We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.” One of those surprises could be a new acquisition: “We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along, that we are in a unique position to take advantage of because of our strong cash position. We don’t let it burn a hole in our pocket, we don’t allow it to motivate us to do stupid acquisitions. And so I think that we’d like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future.”
For the first fiscal quarter of 2011, Apple expects revenue of about US$23 billion.