Apple Beats Recession With Its Best Q2 Ever

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Best quarterly earnings yet for Apple, but it's not because of Macs

Despite the doom and gloom all around due to the recession, Apple has posted its best second quarter earnings results in company history.

For its fiscal 2009 second quarter ended March 28, 2009 Apple posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion. These results compare to revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion at the end of the same quarter a year ago.

Yes, Apple is making more money off each sale than it did last year. Gross margin was 36.4 percent, up from 32.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.

As much PC/Mac talk goes on here though, it wasn’t sales of computers that gave Apple its recession-beating numbers. In fact, sales of Mac desktops and notebooks at 2.22 million is a 3 percent decline from a year ago. iPods were up just 3 percent, selling an impressive 11.01 million during the quarter. The real growth came from the iPhone, selling 3.79 million, representing 123 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

“We are extremely pleased to report the best non-holiday quarter revenue and earnings in our history,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Apple’s financial condition remains very robust, with almost $29 billion in cash and marketable securities on our balance sheet. Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $7.7 billion to $7.9 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $.95 to $1.00.”

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
25 Comments Comment from the forums
  • stryk55
    Gross margin was 36.4 percent, up from 32.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.

    Is this the "Apple Tax" you pay with any Apple product? That would mean that their products are only worth 63.6 percent of their price...

    But I could be misinterpreting it... :-)
    Reply
  • matt87_50
    no surprise. in aus an iphone is $900, more than any netbook. seeing as how an iTouch is $300, do you really think that the extra hardware in an iphone is worth TWICE as much as all the hardware shared between them? its just cause no one sees the actual price of the iphone cause everyone gets them for "free" on plans
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/23/technology/microsoft_earnings/index.htm?postversion=2009042316
    We all know about Windows vs. OS X and iPod vs. Zune. So what's happening with all the Windows Mobile phones?
    Reply
  • Hatecrime69
    Well it seems that the one thing that's making them all the money this year is the iphone, so 'apple tax' doesn't really apply since almost nobody buys it without a plan (and apple really, really doesn't want people to, hence the huge markup in places were unlocked versions of phones are required)

    with signing your life away (that is, a contract to go along with the iphone) it's typically an average price compared to similar-level phones. Though I guess it's probable that the iphone success limits the ipod growth some, as for macs...apple really needs to get a clue and take a hard, subjective look at what they are trying to do and stop being so stubborn
    Reply
  • starryman
    Yet how many years were they in the red? Good Q2 but representing a small market only shared by one company. Take all of the PDA phones and smartphones out there and see what iPhones represent... I like the concept of iPhones but everything standing behind it screams closed monopoly. I'll be an Apple fan when they decide to open up and stop acting like a software/computer company from the 70's.
    Reply
  • njalterio
    Perhaps the best 2nd quarter, but how about compared to the last three quarters? It would be interesting to see Apple's numbers compared AFTER the market crash.

    Call me cynical, but if computer sales are starting to decrease, I highly doubt Apple will be able to sustain themselves on iPhone's alone. There's only so many they can sell....
    Reply
  • @ie49589:

    Apple is doing good, but so is Microsoft. None of them met expectations, and that's without mentioning market share loss in the "PC" divisions.

    To me, all your complaints only sound like a sore Mac fanboy crying ,who will never accept that Microsoft is doing good even after hard evidence and cold facts support that.

    Sometimes, the truth hurts doesn't it? LOL
    Reply
  • theuerkorn
    It's all about demand and supply. Those in demand can set the price. Get over it. If really nobody wanted an iPhone, Apple couldn't charge a cent for it.
    Reply
  • waikano
    Even at the worst of times circa 1995-1996 Apple had around 4 billion in the Bank and their shares were going for around $14.00. Financially Apple has proven it doesn't over expand or over spend like many other companies do. If they have "...almost $29 billion in cash and marketable securities on our balance sheet." then that tells me they are still doing the financially sound thing, whether you like Apple products or not.
    Reply
  • njalterio
    ie49589@njalterioAfter the crash, Apple numbers were still good.And if Apple has proven something is that they know how to get themselves out even from the worst case scenario (like when they were in red just before introducing the first iMac, thanks to Jobs of course.)So, it doesn't matter if they aren't selling as many computers as before. Like some one else posted before with a link to a CNN news note, computers sales are declining everywhere, that means BOTH PC & MAC.What matters the most right now is to keep your company afloat and that's something that Apple was able to do successfully. Not only that, they even made revenue out of a recession and whats more, they even made more than in previous times. We cannot say the same about Microsoft, who was barely able to meet expectations and by a very small margin (that's without mentioning market share loss in the OS and internet browser divisions, including that would have affected Micro$oft way more.)To me, all your complaints only sound like a bunch of sore PC fanboys crying, who will never accept that Apple is doing good even after hard evidence and cold facts support that.Sometimes, the truth hurts isn't it? LOL.
    Actually I never complained about Apple doing well. I am well aware the all computer sales in general are down. I was simply pointing out that Apple has probably been making less profit in recent months immediately after the crash. Having the best second quarter is great, but how about all those other months since September 2008? Have they also been increasing their profit?

    "Apple is doing good " is not a fact. That is your opinion. We at Tom's Hardware value technology that gives us function and performance. Apple is clearly more concerned with the basic home user who only cares to browse the web, music, pictures and maybe some word processing. So to everyone here who uses their computer for high end tasks that require quad core processors and huge graphics cards, Apple is going to get a lot of flack here. Maybe Apple is doing good things for people who only have basic tasks, but that doesn't apply to anyone here.
    Reply