Apple Q4 2004 Financial Results: Revenue Up 37 Percent

[MacRumors]

In its Q4 2004 financial report, Apple announced revenue of $2.35 billion, a gain of 37% over the same quarter last year. International sales were 37% of revenue. Net profit was $106 million, up from $44 million for Q4 2003.

During the quarter, Apple shipped 836,000 Macintosh units and 2,016,000 iPods, up 6% and 500%, respectively, over Q4 2003.

In annual results, Apple reported net income of $276 million (compared to $69 million in 2003) on revenue of $8.28 billion (compared to $6.21 billion in 2003).

"We are thrilled to report our highest fourth quarter revenue in nine years," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We shipped over 2 million iPods, our Retail store revenue grew 95 percent year-over-year, and the new iMac G5 has received phenomenal reviews and is off to a great start."

The conference call can be replayed via QuickTime here.

[iShater]

Wonderful news!

I guess Apple is not 'dead'!

[Freg3000]

And for people "blaming" (I suppose attributing is a better word) the large number of iPod sales to HP, they only accounted for 6% of total sales.

Great quarter.

[milzay]

Finally, a substantial rise in revenue. Maybe windows users are fianlly seeing the light.

[Some_Big_Spoon]

6% increas in CPU's? I guess that's good. Nothing to write home about though. Would probably sell more if they actually had the machines ready, like 2.5 Duals.

[Rustus Maximus]

roll on...big Apple...roll on

(lovingly pats his new dual 2.5 monster that arrived yesterday)

better late than never

[javabear90]

Good thing I have lots of AAPL stock!

[im_noahselby]

Any new information pertaining to hardware developments and product releases revealed in the conference call?

Noah

[mugwump]

Imagine what those numbers will be for the next quarter, with HP iPod sales, iMac G5 shipping each month, better availability of G5 Powermacs, updated eMacs...

Sheesh, the new iMacs and Powermac have just begun shipping now and the numbers are good. Apple is firing on all cylinders. Bring on the Powerbook G5 and Tiger!

[zelmo]

Originally Posted by im_noahselby

Any new information pertaining to hardware developments and product releases revealed in the conference call?

Noah

Nothing yet. The anal-ists are still chatting with Phil and Tim.

[Mudbug]

Somebody oughta call Paul Thurott and Rob Enderle to let them know.

[gwangung]

Originally Posted by Some_Big_Spoon

6% increas in CPU's? I guess that's good. Nothing to write home about though. Would probably sell more if they actually had the machines ready, like 2.5 Duals.

Or iMacs....

Given the lack of product, I think 6% >IS< something to write home about. (Not that I won't expect even bigger numbers for next quarter....)

[zelmo]

Originally Posted by mugwump

Imagine what those numbers will be for the next quarter, with HP iPod sales, iMac G5 shipping each month, better availability of G5 Powermacs, updated eMacs...

Sheesh, the new iMacs and Powermac have just begun shipping now and the numbers are good. Apple is firing on all cylinders. Bring on the Powerbook G5 and Tiger!

They shipped @156k PowerMacs in the QTR. If I heard correctly, they doubled July shipments in August, then doubled the combined July/Aug total in September. By that math: Roughly 17k in July, another 35k in August, and a whopping 104K units in September, once the supply started breaking loose. If that holds consistent for three months, that is 312,000 PowerMacs for the QTR to come, or double prior QTR. You can also expect the iMac number of 56K to go up quite drastically, considering they will have units shipping for all three months. With iPod hitting stride for XMas, this could be a truly astounding QTR for Apple. That may explain the projected $0.39 - 0.42 eps Phil suggested.

Simply rockin'!

[Fukui]

Wow, who voted negative?
I guess 100 mill profit is too small.

[quackattack]

I knew I should have invested.....

[stoid]

Originally Posted by Mudbug

Somebody oughta call Paul Thurott and Rob Enderle to let them know.

Seems like someone already has. Notice the two negative rates on this thread!

[jiggie2g]

I wonder how many iPods in total have been sold since it's introduction in Nov 2001. I also want to know how many of those total sales were iMac G5's.

Is it just me or is it about time the rest of the Industry jump on the AAC bandwagon, i mean c'mon it's almost 2005 and i can't find a single Flash MP3 player , Car Stereo or Home DVD Player that can Play AAC files , not even reg non-DRM AAC. I would love to have a 100-1000 Track AAC CD/DVD in my DVD Player so i can blast my Stereo.

I find this rediculous like everyone has something against AAC or is too busy sucking off MicroSloth to admit that AAC is a superior format and with over 100,000,000 iTunes MS songs sold and close to 10,000,000 iPods sold(my own assumption based on what i have herd). Isn't it time for the rest of the industry to just come on down to the other side.

[Chaszmyr]

They said that the supply of the processors for the 2.5ghz PowerMac may be constrained throughout Q1, which means there's still a long time to wait for a PowerMac update.

[wide]

Originally Posted by javabear90

Good thing I have lots of AAPL stock!

lol, me too.

did anyone notice the tone in his (i dont know their names, but the main speaker), when he said that he "[didn't] want to talk about specific product lines" in response to the question about trouble supplying other chips (i.e. the G4). my guess is that apple has stopped ordering the usual quantities of G4 chips so that there may be a smooth transition between the current and future powerbooks and/or ibooks. is there any way to confirm this?

[shawnce]

[reposting some notes so far from the concall]

iPod has over 65% of all digital portable players (in US I believe) over 90% if you limit it to hard drive based.

Supplies for 1.8/2.0 GHz G5 CPUs didn't match demand as expected in the August timeframe, additionally supplies for the 2.5Ghz G5 CPU didn't match demand as expected in September timeframe. So G5 CPU supplies have affected all PowerMac and iMac shipments during all of Q4 however month over month they have been shipping more and more of those systems (in August they shipped more then what the shipped in July and in Sept. the shipped more then twice sum of both August and July). They did give guidance that they feel this shipment growth will be near linear into next quarter... which would make a good growth rate in PowerMac/iMac shipments quarter over quarter :-)

They expect that during Q1 G5 supplies will finally match demand with the only possible exception being the 2.5GHz CPU but they feel even that will unlikely still be an issue by the end Q1. In other words Q1 should see G5 shipment catching up and stay up with demand.

In retail stores they are still seeing around 45-50% of Mac buyers as new to the mac platform and/or buying their first computer. Have not seen a dip in this percentage... they believe it is strongly fed by the "halo" effect of the iPod. New to Mac sales is over 30% as seen in the retail stores and this has been stable if not growing.

Apple has chosen and continues to chose to not target the sub-800 computer systems market and instead spend R&D funds on iPod, iTMS, and systems they currently ship.

eMac up 40% or so if I heard that correctly

They exited the quarter with "substantial" back log orders of the new iMac and iPod/iPod mini. So demand looks good and they believe supplies will continue to grow during the next quarter.

Q1 could be a VERY good quarter for Apple (xmas centered quarter).

[done taking notes]

[shawnce]

Originally Posted by wide

lol, me too.

did anyone notice the tone in his (i dont know their names, but the main speaker), when he said that he "[didn't] want to talk about specific product lines" in response to the question about trouble supplying other chips (i.e. the G4). my guess is that apple has stopped ordering the usual quantities of G4 chips so that there may be a smooth transition between the current and future powerbooks and/or ibooks. is there any way to confirm this?

Likely reading to much in to that one... he was generally trying to say that the G5 supply issues are not indicative to G4 supplies issues... in other words G4 supplies are fine.

[macridah]

what a slam dunk .... and things are going to get better!!! IBM and Toshiba iron out their manufacturing wrinkles and will soon stop slowing apple sales.

[Macmaniac]

Apple needs to whip IBM to get them moving on the G5. Glad I had Apple stock, after hours trading has them up over $2!!!

[dongmin]

Originally Posted by Chaszmyr

They said that the supply of the processors for the 2.5ghz PowerMac may be constrained throughout Q1, which means there's still a long time to wait for a PowerMac update.

if they're still having trouble fabbing 2.5 ghz, i wouldn't hold out too much hope for significant speedbumps anytime soon. maybe the 975/980s will be easier to fab???

[shawnce]

Originally Posted by dongmin

if they're still having trouble fabbing 2.5 ghz, i wouldn't hold out too much hope for significant speedbumps anytime soon. maybe the 975/980s will be easier to fab???

This isn't a fully safe assumption... introducing new systems implies that the 2.5GHz will be bumped down in the product mix. So their constraint comments could be factoring in product CPU shifts that would possibly expand the existing demand on the 2.5GHz CPU (think phase out of 1.8GHz PM or even 2.0 PM, bump of xserve to 2.5GHz or close to 2.5GHz, etc.).