Apple posts $1.61 billion profit, beats expectations

Apple announced a fiscal first-quarter profit of $1.61 billion, or $1.78 per share, on a revenue of $10.17 billion. This is the first time Apple surpasses a quarterly revenue of $10 billion, a year ago Apple reported a revenue of $9.6 billion and a net income of $1.58 billion. Net income is up 2 percent year-over-year and that's significantly better than what analysts were expecting. Analysts polled by FactSet Research expected Apple to report earnings of $1.29 per share on a revenue of $10.16 billion. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, equal to a year ago.

The firm says Mac sales were up nine percent, iPods sales soared three percent and iPhone sales skyrocketed 88 percent.

In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognizes revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone™ and Apple TV® over their economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures* for the quarter are $11.8 billion of “Adjusted Sales” and $2.3 billion of “Adjusted Net Income.”

Apple sold 2,524,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing nine percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold a record 22,727,000 iPods during the quarter, representing three percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 4,363,000, representing 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history—surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

“Our outstanding results generated over $3.6 billion in cash during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $7.6 billion to $8 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $.90 to $1.00.”

Apple's shares are up 9.26 percent to $90.50 in after-hours trading.