Apple has just released its fiscal Q4 2012 earnings, and the electronic device giant reported earning $36 billion in revenue (compared to $35 billion in Q3, and $28.27 billion in the year-ago quarter), for an $8.2 billion profit (compared to $8.8 billion in Q3, and $6.62 billion in Q4 2011), coming out to diluted earnings of $8.67 per share.
As Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt pointed out earlier today, analysts have been tweaking their estimates in response to CEO Tim Cook’s announcement that the company has sold over 100 million iPads — the implication being that some of their more ambitious iPad sales estimates were off-base. The earlier earnings consensus hovered around an EPS of $8.84 on $36.2 billion in revenue, but ultimately dipped to $8.75 EPS and $35.8 billion in revenue. Apple just barely managed to beat those estimates with regard to revenue, but still missed when it came to earnings — though it should be noted that expectations were all over the place.
Apple’s own forecast was, as always, more modest than the analysts, as the company’s CFO Oppenheimer said Apple expected to pull in around $34 billion in revenue, and and diluted EPS of about $7.65.
Apple says they sold a total of 26.9 million phones in Q4, a small bump up from the 26 million sold in Q3, but not quite meeting Wall Streets expectations. Apple hasn’t reported how many of the 26.9 million iPhones sold were iPhone 5’s, as they don’t break down iPhone sales by model. iPad sales were down this quarter, with 14 million devices sold.
Looks like a mixed bag for Apple this quarter, but the holiday buying season is almost upon us and with Apple recently refreshing almost all of its product lines, the holiday sales figures should be impressive, driving an excellent Q1 2013 for the company.
Shareholders should take note that if you are a shareholder as of close of business on November 12, 2012, you’ll pick up a nice little $2.65 a share dividend on November 15, 2012.
