Apple reported its new OS X 10.7 "Lion" is launching July 20, and that iPad and iPhone sales are up, as part of its July 19 earnings call.
Apple reported significant growth in iPad and iPhone sales
for the fiscal 2011 third quarter, on its way to quarterly revenues of $28.57
billion and net profit of $7.31 billion.
In all, Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones during the quarter,
a year-over-year increase of 142 percent. It also sold 9.25 million iPads, good
for a year-over-year increase of 183 percent. Sales of 3.95 million Macs
represented a 14 percent increase from the same quarter in 2010.
"We sold every iPad we could make," CFO Peter Oppenheimer
told analysts and media listening to Apple's July 19 earnings call, while suggesting
that significant majorities of the Fortune 500 are studying how to best
integrate the bestselling tablet into their employees' workflow. The iPhone is
also apparently enjoying an uptick in adoption among enterprise users.
As with previous quarters, Apple faced a significant
decline in iPod sales: 7.54 million units sold, a 20 percent dip from the
year-ago quarter. The company traditionally ascribes this softness in
media-player sales to cannibalization by the iPhone.
"We're thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with
revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent," Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote
in a July 19 statement accompanying the numbers. "Right now, we're very focused
and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall."
Even before Apple's July 19 earnings report, analysts and
pundits had turned their attention to the back end of 2011, when the company is
expected to release a host of new software-including the Mac OS X "Lion" and
iOS 5 operating systems-along with a new iPhone.
"The concern on [Wall Street] seems to be more about the
outlook for the third quarter, ongoing supply constraints for the iPad and the timing of
the iPhone introduction," Tony Ursillo, an analyst with Loomis Sayles
& Co., told
Reuters July 15.
For many, questions (and buzz) are growing around the nature
of that iPhone rollout. The blog Boy Genius Report, citing "new information
from an incredibly solid source," posted July 18 that Apple is planning to
launch a no-contract iPhone priced at $350. "It's entirely possible that the
low-cost iPhone will in fact be the iPhone 3GS," that
posting added. "We are told that Apple will continue to sell the current
iPhone 4 as well, finally giving the company a full range of devices in the
lower, mid, and high-end price segments."
But Apple likes to keep its future plans shrouded in
secrecy, and company executives on the July 19 earnings call were tight-lipped
about the iPhone's future. Oppenheimer did reveal, however, that Apple plans on
launching the latest version of Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" July 20. The latest version
of Apple's long-running Mac OS X franchise includes full-screen applications,
tweaks to the user interface (such as disappearing scroll bars and an increased
range of gesture controls) and an AirDrop feature that wirelessly shoots files
to other users.
Oppenheimer acknowledged that iOS
5 and iCloud will launch during the fall time frame, along with a "major
product transition that we won't talk about." That could be the closest thing
to an actual iPhone reference. The iOS 5 update includes a wide variety of new
features specifically designed to make Apple's mobile devices more competitive
against Google Android, Windows Phone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry
franchise.
Apple COO Tim Cook, also on the call, suggested that the
iPhone's strong quarterly sales were due to expansion in regions such as China,
Latin America and the Middle East, which he defined as "markets that Apple has
not traditionally been as strong in." On top of that, the iPhone appeared on 42
additional carriers.
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Nicholas Kolakowski on Twitter
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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