Apple today said that it was "exceptionally pleased" with its fiscal third quarter results, as the company saw its highest third quarter revenue in eight years and saw a four percent operating margin. Apple saw a 19% in Mac-related revenue on record shipments of both its PowerBooks and iBooks. Apple also said it saw dramatic increases in both retail and Europe revenue as well as significant gains in higher education sales.

• Mac-based revenue grew 19% from the year-ago quarter and that it represented 58% of the total revenue for the quarter.




• Apple shipped 876,000 Macs, its highest quarterly total in 3 years, which it said was in step with IDC's annual growth forecast.




• Apple also said it shipped 416,000 desktops, including 183,000 eMacs, 173,000 Power Macs, and just 60, 000 iMacs.




• Average selling price of the iMac declined from $1067 to $967 because the company shipped far fewer flat-panel iMacs. The average selling price of the iPod declined because of the greater proportion of iPod mini's sold.




• Shipments of G5-based Power Macs were very constrainted due to CPU supply problems from IBM. Apple said the same constraints were the major factor in the forthcoming G5-based iMac and would continue to affect supply of lower-end Power Macs during July and its high-end Power Mac G5 through August. Apple says that IBM has allocated significant resources--engineering and executive--and now has the problem under control.




• Apple saw a decline in Peripheral revenue primarily due to transition of display line. Last month, Apple introduced new Cinema Displays and began shipping the new products this week. Apple sold $219 million in peripherals and $210 million in software.




• Apple's music-based revenue grew 162% and it had over 13,000 points of distribution worldwide for its iPod. According to May 2004 data, Apple's iPod remains the No. 1 MP3 player among both the flash- and drive-based products. Apple's iTunes Music Store remains the market leading store with over 70% marketshare of legal downloads in the US and a market leading position. Apple said the iTunes Music Store generated a small profit.




• Demand for iPod mini in the US is "staggering" with resellers selling out within hours or days of receiving shipments. Apple said that it had significantly improved production levels, but that demand was outpacing supply. Apple said its international orders were "unprecedented" and that it had allocated a certain portion of July shipments for the worldwide launch. Apple said it did not forsee much improvement in availability of the iPod mini.




• The HP-branded iPod is still on track to ship this summer.




• Apple saw significant advances in higher education with 40 percent jump in sales from the year-ago quarter and a three percent jump in K-12 sales. Apple said that combined it saw an 16 percent increase in education sales, though the total market is "shrinking in double digits."




• Apple said that Office Depot would not be carrying Macs in retail stores, despite confirmations by Office Depot officials to the contrary. Apple said it would only offer online orders and chose Office Depot because of its small business/home office focus.




• Apple opened 2 retail stores, ending the quarter with 80 stores. There were an average of 79 stores open during the quarter.




• Apple saw $270 million in revenue from its stores. Apple Stores earned an average of $3.4 million per store, a signficant increase from the $2.6 million revenue per store in the year-ago quarter. The segment saw a $7 million profit as well as contributed $48 million in other profit associated with manufacturing. Apple sais that its stores saw 5.8 million people in the quarter, or about 5,600 per store per week. Apple plans on opening two more international stores this year (Osaka and London) and plans to have 100 stores open by the end of the calendar year.




• Geographically, Apple acknowledged weakness in Japan and said that the company was trying to make changes to improve the situation. Revenue from the Japan market was $172 million, up two percent.




• Apple said that its after-tax restructuring charge of $6 million was related to the .




• Apple sees gross margins decreasing next quarter to 27.0-27.2 percent primarily due to CPU constraints and air-frieght associated with the iMac product launch.