iPhone boosts Apple profits 70%

Apple’s profits soared 70% to a record $4.31 billion (€3.09 billion) in calendar 3Q10, on the back of a surge in sales of the iPhone.
 
Shipments of the device grew 90% to 14.1 million during the quarter – Apple’s fiscal 4Q10 – helping the firm to grow revenues 66.5% to $20.34 billion year-on-year, which is on-par with analyst’s forecasts.
 
However, sales of 4.2 million iPads fell short of the five million units analysts predicted, FT.com reports. The firm shipped 3.3 million iPads in calendar 2Q, despite the unit launching midway through that period.
 
The firm’s margins also fell from 41.8% a year ago to 36.9% this quarter.
 
Margins and iPads were not top of CEO Steve Jobs’ list when he made a rare appearance at the results announcement.
 
Jobs instead focused on the headline figures as he took aim at rivals RIM and Android, noting RIM shipped just 12.1 million devices during its most recent quarter, and challenging Google’s assertion it is shipping 200,000 Android devices per day.
 
“There is no solid data on how many phones are shipped each quarter,” he said, adding that Apple is selling an average of 275,000 iOS devices per day.
 
Jobs said RIM won't catch up to Apple “in the foreseeable future,” and said the Canadian vendor will struggle to “convince developers to build for a third platform after iOS and Android.”
 
He said the Android platform is too fragmented to work, and challenged the assertion that Apple’s app development environment is closed. “We find this a bit disingenuous and clouding the real difference between our approaches.”
 
Jobs also predicted little impact from a fresh wave of rival tablet PCs on iPad sales, stating that units with seven-inch screens will be “dead on arrival.”
 
Despite Jobs’ bullishness, Apple’s stock fell 6.1% to $298.50 in after-hours trading yesterday.