Missing Wall Street expectiations for the quarter ending September 24, Apple reported revenue of $28.27 vs. $20.34 billion for the same period last year. Profit was $6.62 billion or $7.02 per share vs. $4.64 per share last year. And the gross profit margin of 40.3 percent was up 3.4 percent over last year.
The profit per share was 27 cents below the average estimate among Wall Street analysts surveyed by Thompson Financial. This is a rare miss for Apple, which has been beating expectations in recent quarters. Apple did easily top its own forecast, which called for earnings of $5.50 a share on revenue of $25 billion.
For the current quarter, Apple, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., expects revenue of $37 billion and is projecting earnings of $9.30 per share, 32 cents above analyst expectations, for the current quarter, which it noted runs 14 weeks instead of 13.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO said in a statement, “We are thrilled with the very strong finish of an outstanding fiscal 2011, growing annual revenue to $108 billion and growing earnings to $26 billion. Customer response to the Iphone 4s has been fantastic, we have strong momentum going into the holiday season, and we remain really enthusiastic about our product pipeline.”
In the quarter, Apple sold 17.07 million iPhones and 11.12 million iPads.
Shares of Apple stock were down 6 percent in after hours trading.
