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It’s hard to believe that Apple was slumping so badly 16 years ago that it almost was sold to Sun Microsystems for $6 per share. But Steve Jobs returned, the company came out with all those iGadgets, and history was changed.
Those dark days of 1996 are especially difficult to fathom when one examines the company’s current stock price of $560 (in after-hours trading April 24) and its Q2 2012 earnings report, made public April 24, which shows that the world’s richest company made $39.2 billion last quarter and banked $11.6 billion as profit.
Doing the math, the $39.2 billion equates to a 59 percent year-over-year increase in revenue and the $11.6 billion a whopping 94 percent upsurge in net profit over the same quarter a year ago.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based smartphone, tablet and PC maker and online music purveyor continues to ride the iPhone and iPad wave that started a mere five years ago with the launch of the first iPhone. Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. It sold 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, a 151 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter, including 10,000 alone to the San Diego Union High School District.
The company sold 4 million Macs during the quarter, a 7 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.7 million iPods, a 15 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter, so not everything the company does breaks records.
“We’re thrilled with sales of over 35 million iPhones and almost 12 million iPads in the March quarter,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said. “The new iPad is off to a great start, and across the year you’re going to see a lot more of the kind of innovation that only Apple can deliver.”
“Our record March quarter results drove $14 billion in cash flow from operations,” Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said. “Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter, we expect revenue of about $34 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $8.68.”
The latter number is a sharp drop from the company’s EPS of $12 in Q2 2012.