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Apple posts $6 billion profit in Q1 earnings call

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Apple Inc. announced Tuesday that first quarter profits rose more than 77% to US$6 billion, or US$6.43 per diluted share, driven by record sales in three of its four major product categories, thereby beating analysts’ predicted earnings in the process.

Per AppleInsider, the company also posted record revenue of US$26.74 billion for the three-month period ended December 25, 2010, or more than US$2 billion above consensus estimates. The results compare to revenue of US$15.68 billion and net quarterly profit of US$3.38 billion, or US$3.67 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23% unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The company also sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86% unit growth over the year-ago quarter. iPod sales during the quarter totaled 19.45 million, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter, while iPad sales came in at 7.33 million units.

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs. “We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

Gross margin was 38.5% compared to 40.9% in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62% of the quarter’s revenue.

“We couldn’t be happier with the performance of our business, generating $9.8 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about US$22 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about US$4.90.”

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.