Macintosh and iPod sales helped boost Apple Inc.'s fiscal third-quarter earnings 31 percent, beating Wall Street's expectations, but investors pummeled the stock after Apple said profit margins contracted and the company issued soft guidance for the current quarter.
Cupertino, California-based Apple said on Monday it earned US$1.07 billion ($NZ1.42) billion), or US$1.19 per share, 11 cents ahead of Wall Street's expectations, according to a Thomson Financial survey of analysts.
Revenue jumped 38 percent to US$7.46 billion, ahead of analysts' average view for US$7.37 billion in sales.
Apple said it shipped more Macs in the quarter than ever before - 2.5 million, up 41 percent from a year ago, with desktop shipments growing faster than laptops. Apple also said iPod shipments jumped 12 percent.
Sales from US stores rose faster than revenue overall, despite economic turmoil wrought by the domestic mortgage and credit crises.
"The quarter was a home run," Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said in an interview.
But at first glance, investors disagreed. Shares sank US$7.19, or 4.3 percent, to US$159.10 in after-hours trading, after gaining US$1.14 to close at US$166.29.
Apple's gross margin fell to 34.8 percent from 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.
As it often does, Apple issued a conservative outlook for the current fourth quarter, predicting US$1 per share on US$7.8 billion in sales, well short of Wall Street's expectations. Analysts had predicted Apple's fourth-quarter earnings to reach US$1.24 per share on US$8.32 billion in sales.
