Apple Still Doing Nicely Out of iPod

Apple Computer have just released their fourth quarter earnings — and they’ve more than doubled. Q4 2003 was good with the company bringing in a profit of US$44 million (€35.59 million), but Q4 2004 is a different story Apple reporting a profit of US$106 million (€85.74 million) – a leap of 240%. It’s a sign of how the iPod has changed Apple that music products and services now account for 27% of the company’s revenue.

Steve Jobs announced why the company had done so well: “We are thrilled to report our highest fourth quarter revenue in nine years. We shipped over 2 million iPods, our Retail store revenue grew 95% year-over-year, and the new iMac G5 has received phenomenal reviews and is off to a great start.”

The iPod certainly is still popular – last quarter Apple sold “only” 860,000, and Q4 2003 sales were 336,000. A annual sales hike of 500% this far after a product’s launch is remarkable and shows that Apple’s policy of regular revisions is working well. Indeed, the company is currently selling more than two iPods for every computer they ship.

Apple’s Q4 results

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Fraser Lovatt

Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people. Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon. At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC. After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video. These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?