On the heels of its announcement that CEO Steve Jobs was taking another medical leave of absence, Apple announced its first quarter 2011 financial results. It beat analyst expectations, reporting record revenues of US$26.74 billion and record net quarterly profit of US$6 billion.
“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “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.”
Apple sold 16.24 million iPhones (an 86 percent growth year-over-year), 19.45 million iPods (a seven percent unit decline from the same quarter a year ago), and 4.13 million Macs (a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter). It also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter.
Apple, which normally issues conservative forecasts, also expects to report US$22 billion in revenue for the next quarter, an outlook above that of many analysts.