Apple's fourth quarter profits
missed Wall Street forecasts as iPad
sales fell short of analysts'
predictions.

Profits in the last three months were $
8.2bn (£5bn), up from $6.6bn last
year, with revenues of $36bn, up 27%
. Apple sold 26.9 million iPhones in the
quarter to 29 September, higher than
forecast, and 14 million iPads. The slower iPad sales was put down to
consumers delaying purchases on
rumours that Apple was launching an
iPad Mini, which was unveiled on
Tuesday. "We were happy with the 14 million
iPad sales in the quarter. It exceeded
our expectations," said Apple finance
director Peter Oppenheimer. "But as
the summer went on, the rumours
were pretty rampant about the iPhone and iPad." Apple shares fell 1.5% in after hours
trading on Wall Street, although
analysts said the lower numbers
should not be of too much concern. Shaw Wu, analyst at Sterne Agee, said:
"The iPhones came in better than
expected. The shortfall was on the
iPad for two reasons. There was a
pause on the iPad ahead of the iPad
Mini. Everyone was waiting for that. Then they replaced the third
generation iPad with the fourth
generation." "They stopped shipping the third
generation to the channels. So it was
customers waiting for the iPad mini
and drawing down the third
generation." 'Very confident' Attention will now turn to the iPhone
5, which has been on sale for nine
days, as the market enters the run-up
to the key Christmas spending season. Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, said in a statement : "We're entering this holiday season
with the best iPhone, iPad, Mac and
iPod products ever, and we remain
very confident in our new product
pipeline." Apple said that it sold 4.9 million
Macintosh computers in the latest
quarter, a 1% rise from the same
three-month period last year.
However, sales of iPods fell 19% to 5.3
million, according to the earnings report. The fourth quarter figures took
Apple's profits for the year to $41.7bn,
up 45% on 2011, with revenues of $
156.5bn, a 61% increase.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20091054