Apple reported lower profits than a year ago for its second quarter of fiscal 2003, but managed to take in almost the same amount of revenue despite a drop in units sold, the company said in a release Wednesday.
Apple reported lower profits than a year ago for its second quarter of fiscal 2003, but managed to take in almost the same amount of revenue despite a drop in units sold, the company said Wednesday.
Separately, Apple issued a statement denying the validity of comments made earlier Wednesday by a Vivendi Universal board member that Apple was planning to acquire Universal Music Group.
The Cupertino, Calif., company reported a net profit of $14 million, or $0.04 per share. This compares to a net profit of $40 million and earnings per share of $0.11 in the second quarter of its fiscal 2002 year. Second-quarter revenue was $1.48 billion, down slightly from $1.5 billion a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had predicted earnings per share of $0.02 and revenue of $1.46 billion.
Comments attributed to a Vivendi board member earlier Wednesday that Apple was about to bid about $6 billion for Universal were refuted by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a statement read during a conference call to discuss the earnings.
“Apple has never made any offer to invest in or acquire a major music company,” Jobs said in the statement. Speculation about such a deal had been rife in recent days.
The company shipped 711,000 Macintosh units in the second quarter, down from 813,000 units in the second quarter of 2002. Of that total, 42% were notebooks, led by sales of the 12-inch Powerbook introduced at MacWorld in January. Apple shipped 82,000 units of the 12-inch Powerbook, but delays in availability of the new 17-inch Powerbook limited shipments of that notebook to 14,000 units, Fred Anderson, Apple’s executive vice president and CFO, said during the conference call.
Two of Apple’s core markets, creative professionals and education customers, have been hit especially hard by the economic troubles of the past year and Apple needs an upturn in the economy to boost sales in those sectors, Anderson said.
The company is delighted with the number of Powerbooks sold in the quarter, he said. But sales of Apple’s iMac declined to 256,000 units from 372,000 units in the second quarter of 2002.
Apple expects revenue in the third quarter to be flat compared to the second, and expects to post a slight profit in that quarter, Anderson said.
