Techradar - All the latest technology news
Updated: Apple revenue at $36B last quarter, 26.9 million iPhones sold
Apple revealed its fiscal year 2012 fourth quarter earnings results Thursday, covering the three month period ending Sept. 29.
The company, which hosted an investor call after the markets closed, posted quarterly revenue of $36 billion for a net profit of $8.2 billion.
During the same time a year ago, Apple posted $28.3 billion in revenue and a net profit of $6.6 billion.
International sales accounted for 60 percent of the company's quarterly revenue.
iPhone leads the charge
Last quarter alone, Apple sold 26.9 million iPhones, a 58 percent unit growth from the same time last year.
The iPhone 5 demand continues to outstrip supply, said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple CFO, and the company is moving to fill customer need.
The phone's figures were only counted for nine days during the quarter, bleeding expectations for its sales into the next fiscal reporting period.
While the company mentioned its iOS 6 launch, it said work hasn't stopped on fixing one lampooned feature.
"We've made a number of improvements to Maps over the last month and we will not stop until Maps reaches our incredibly high standards," Oppenheimer said.
Fourteen million iPads were moved, jumping 26 percent from the same sales figure in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011, though still below investor expectations.
Nearly 4.9 million Macs were sold in the quarter (a 1 percent unit increase over last year), while 18 new stores opened worldwide.
Apple recorded a significant drop in iPod sales, selling 5.3 million units, a 19 percent unit decline from last year.
iTunes brought in $2.1 billion in revenue, while the company sold 1.3 million Apple TVs in the fourth quarter.
Five million units of the TV - Apple's "beloved hobby" - were moved during fiscal year 2012, up from 2.8 million the year before.
Looking ahead
For the fiscal year, the Cupertino company generated over $156 billion in sales, netting $41 billion in income. Operating cash flow reached more than $50 billion.
As for total cash reserves, Apple is sitting on a little over $121 billion.
Moving into the December quarter, the company expects about $52 billion in revenue.
The iPhone 5 and iPad mini will lead the new product charge, Cupertino claimed, while lower pricing for the iPhone 4S and third-generation iPad will help the company chop its margins and increase revenue.
"We're dedicated to making the best products in the world," CEO Tim Cook said during the conference call. "We are managing the company for the long run and will continue to make great long range decisions."
 |  |
Yahoo! focuses on mobile with app start-up buyout
Yahoo took its first major steps towards its new, more mobile strategy as the search engine announced it bought mobile start-up Stamped Thursday.
The New York-based company created an iPhone app that let users share and recommend things such as restaurants, movies, books and more. The deal is reported to cost somewhere in the double-digit millions.
"Today, we're thrilled to announce that we've acquired a very talented team based in New York City to help us create a new center of mobile product development for Yahoo!," Adam Cahan, senior vice president of Emerging Products and Technology, wrote on Yahoo's corporate blog.
"[The] entire Stamped team are a natural fit for us," Cahan continued. "Their experience building fun, useful, personalized mobile products aligns well with Yahoo!'s vision to create the best everyday mobile experience for our users.
"They will be a great asset as we expand Yahoo!'s mobile efforts and build a world-class mobile development organization."
Yahoo's new mobile direction
Earlier this week, CEO Marissa Mayer told Yahoo investors she wanted to focus the companies scattered mobile strategy.
She said Yahoo's mobile experience is too "splintered," with 76 different apps across iOS and Android platforms.
Mayer went on to say that Yahoo needs to become a predominately mobile service, and that goal should be attained sooner rather than later.
Yahoo didn't have quite the mobile talent it needs, and she told investors they would be bring that talent over through hiring new people.
Stamped marked the first wave of those new hires. Its co-founders will not only share a huge paycheck but they will be charged with creating a new engineering office for Yahoo in New York City's Bryant Park.
"After everything we learned from building Stamped, we're excited to start work again on something big, mobile, and new - but we can't discuss the details just yet," the Stamped team wrote on the company blog.
The new office also means the team will be hiring more engineers, presumably with a background in mobile.
See ya later, Stamped
As for Stamped, the service will skip into the sunset by the end of the year. Though it will be closed down, its founders said they will roll out a new tool that lets users export stamps and other data.
How ex-Stamped followers will be able to use that data is unclear at the moment, but it will probably have something to do with Yahoo.
| |
Teardown shows new 13-inch MacBook Pro marginally more repairable
The first teardown of the 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina display indicates that the new, super-slim computer from Apple is slightly more repairable than its 15-inch counterpart.
That's definitely a step in the right direction. In its 15-inch MacBook Pro Retina display review, TechRadar said that the computer was "arguably the least upgradeable or repairable notebook around."
In keeping with that, the 15-inch version scored a repairability rating out 1 out of 10 (10 being the easiest to repair) from iFixit four months ago.
The same teardown team gave the 13-inch Retina a 2 out of 10, which is still a long way from making any computer marked "Retina" user-repairable.
Why the 13-inch is easier to repair
Pulling apart the just-released computer and taking photos in the process, iFixit illustrated why the 13-inch Retina model deserved an extra repairability point.
"[Removal of the battery] took us roughly 15 minutes to complete, without the use of a heat gun," iFixit explained, making it sound easy. "All we needed was a Torx screwdriver and three spudgers."
"In contrast, it took us three attempts to successfully remove the 15-inch Retina's battery without puncturing it, and the third attempt took over half an hour to perform."
Replacement of the trackpad was also less intense.
"We are so excited to see the trackpad come out. Just five screws keep the trackpad in place. You can actually replace it if it breaks, which is pretty much impossible on the 15" model - it's covered by the battery."
In no way easy
Of course, iFixit still discovered five major problems in its teardown process.
The battery, while replaceable in 15 minutes, is still glued into the laptop's top case. This makes replacing a bum battery much more difficult compared to past no-adhesive MacBook Pros.
Fans also require more work. They can't be removed without going through the heatsink, so breaking out some thermal paste is a must, said iFixit.
Repairers who want to go beyond the "Do Not Remove" sticker will also need to deal with the proprietary pentalobe screws, which return from the 15-inch Retina model.
From not easy to impossible
Impossible to upgrade is the RAM, which is soldered to the logic board. As iFixit put it: "It will forever have 8GB of RAM."
Finally, and most depressing of all if you don't have AppleCare, it's impossible to separate the display from the glass since they're fused together.
"The display assembly is almost impossible to take apart," noted iFixit. "If anything ever fails inside the display, you'll need to replace the display as a whole."
This is unlike the iPhone 5 display assembly, which iFixit recently found to be more repairable than the previous two iPhone models.
| |
0 comments:
Post a Comment