Apple's Q4: iPods, Retail Stores Doing Well, Thank You.(2003)

Apple reported better than generally expected results for its fourth quarter ending September 30 and indicted that the current quarter looked better than originally thought. With revenues of $1.2 billion, it was Apple's largest quarter in three years and a 19% increase over the year-prior quarter. Net profit was $44 million including $15 million in one-time special item gains.

Its digital media products and retail stores both showed good results:

iPod Results

iPod sales were 336,000 units and produced $121 million in revenue. Researcher NPD Tech World reported that iPod was the number one selling MP3 player in the states. Moving beyond its traditional computer resellers, Apple expects to have 8,000 storefronts such as Best Buy, Lowes, Circuit City and CompUSA plus several Internet retailers selling iPod by the holiday shopping season. It has sold 1.4 million iPods since its launch.

Apple couldn't report the percentage of Windows-based iPods versus the Mac-based ones because it is the same physical unit now sold in a single shrink-wrapped box. The last time Apple did distinguish between the two operating systems was the March quarter when the two ran about 50/50. The company does distinguish between the two operating systems when customers register but so far has insufficient results to make a determination.

Indicative of Apple's launch of a Windows-based iTunes and of iTunes' impact on iPod sales, CFO Fred Anderson said, "What I would believe is that with the increased emphasis on the Windows side and with the announcement this week [of the Windows iTunes version] that over time we should see the mix begin to shift more towards Windows."

The company is looking for the upcoming quarter to show a solid increase in iPod sales - the year-ago holiday quarter produced a 50% ...