Apple's financial results are good, but not good enough

FRUIT THEMED Apple has announced an 85 per cent increase in profits, just days after its Iphone 4S smashed hardware sales records.

The firm revealed profits of $25.9bn (£16.5bn) for the full year, quarterly revenue of $28.27bn and quarterly net profit of $6.62bn to disappointed financial analysts and the market, which responded by peeling five per cent off its share price. Although sales and revenues at the firm are high, they are not high enough for the market, which was expecting more.

Apple watcher and analyst Carl Howe expressed his surprise at the reaction, saying, "AAPL reports 54 percent earnings growth and that's a miss. For any other $100B company it would be a grand slam. Had to happen sometime tho."

He added, "Record AAPL revenues and earnings are a disappointment - just like the Iphone 4S was before it became the fastest selling smartphone ever."

The problem, for analysts at least, is that the cappuccino company did not sell as many Iphones as they would have liked. Analysts had predicted sales of 20 million, but it is likely that sales slowed down as potential customers started waiting for the next major release.

Apple did sell its hardware in big numbers though, and in the quarter sold 17.1 million iphones - a 21 per cent increase over the same time last year, 11.12 million Ipads, a 166 per cent unit increase and 4.89 million Macs, a 26 per cent unit increase. Ipod sales fell by 27 per cent to 6.62 million units.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook was pleased with the results and said that next year's financial performance had already had a boost from the release of the Iphone 4S, which sold four million in its first weekend.

"We are thrilled with the very strong finish of an outstanding fiscal 2011, growing annual revenue to $108bn and growing earnings to $26bn," said Cook. "Customer response to iPhone 4S has been fantastic, we have strong momentum going into the holiday season, and we remain really enthusiastic about our product pipeline." µ