Apple Marks Best Quarter of Mac Sales for Q3 2007

Sales of 1.76 million Macs between and April and June of this year pushed Apple to an $818 million profit on $5.41 billion in sales, according to the company’s quarterly financial results. That’s 33 percent more Macs than the 1.33 million sold in the year-ago quarter (see “Apple Reports $472 Million Q3-2006 Profit,” 2006-07-24) and represents the highest number of Mac sales during a quarter. iPod sales came in at 9.81 million, a 21 percent gain over last year’s third quarter.

However impressive those numbers are (and for those of us who remember the troubling Q2-1997 quarter, the figures are impressive), the most eagerly awaited results centered around the new iPhone. Apple reported sales of 270,000 iPhones during the quarter, which doesn’t sound too exciting until you realize that number accounts for just 30 hours of sales (the iPhone was released at 6:00 PM on 29-Jun-07, and the quarter ended at midnight on 30-Jun-07). In a conference call with analysts, Apple said it expected to sell one million iPhones by the end of September 2007. Apple also said it expects to launch the iPhone in a few major countries in Europe by the end of this year, and to
have it available more broadly in Europe and Asia in 2008.

Prior to the release of Apple’s numbers, the company’s stock took a beating after cellular partner AT&T reported in its quarterly financials that it logged only 146,000 activations for the same period, far lower than the number of iPhones that Apple said it sold. The difference is most likely due to activation problems on AT&T’s end during the first days of iPhone availability. (Speaking of AT&T, Brier Dudley at The Seattle Times reported that the telecom giant is apologizing to iPhone buyers who were forced to buy
accessories from AT&T stores on the opening day of sales; those customers can return the accessories for full refunds.)