Revenue at Apple rose 71 percent year over year to $26.7 billion in the company’s December quarter, driven by record iPhone, iPad and Mac sales. Apple’s sale of 7.3 million iPads in the final three months of 2010 blew past the 6.4 million anticipated by Wall Street analysts.
Though consumer demand over the holidays helped boost iPad and iPad accessory sales to $4.61 billion in the quarter, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer noted that corporate iPad purchases also were a significant factor.
“Enterprise CIOs are adding iPad to their approved-device lists at an amazing rate,” Oppenheimer told investors. “Today, over 80 percent of the Fortune 100 is already deploying or piloting iPad — up from 65 percent in the September quarter.”
Boosting Production Capacity
Apple reported iPhone sales of 16.2 million units versus the Wall Street consensus of 15.7 million. Furthermore, the company is bullish on the opportunity to sell iPhones to existing and new Verizon Wireless subscribers this year. “We believe the reaction and results from the Verizon customers will be huge,” added Apple COO Timothy Cook.
Given that Apple is the only device maker for its iOS platform, “it carries the burden of meeting demand, which appears to be the primary limiting factor on iPhone sales,” noted Piper Jaffray analysts Gene Munster, Michael Olson, and Andrew Murphy. “But Apple appears to be removing that governor by expanding iPhone production capacity.”
Moreover, Apple’s robust iPad holiday sales have already compelled financial analysts to push up their sales expectations for 2011. Before Apple reported its quarterly results, “we were estimating calendar-year 2011 sales of 23.25 million iPads,” Murphy said in an e-mail. “Now we are at 27.36 million.”
IDC forecasts that 44.6 million tablets will ship globally this year, with
the United States representing nearly 40 percent of the total. The research firm also expects 70.8 million…