October 20, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple, in its recent history, has overcome nearly every obstacle thrown its way. Now it has surpassed another: the burden of high expectations. Apple managed to surprise optimistic investors, posting a 47 percent increase in profit in the fourth quarter and handily beating Wall Street’s estimates. Renewed sales of Macintosh laptops and the continued popularity of the iPhone around the world helped to lift Apple’s bottom line.

“It’s a pretty impressive quarter given that consumers are still trying to figure out whether they want to spend again,” said Gene Munster, a securities analyst at Piper Jaffray. Shares of Apple have already nearly doubled this year, and investors pushed up the stock throughout what appeared to be a profitable summer. On Monday, shares of Apple rose $11.58, or 6 percent, in after-hours trading, after closing at $189.96 in the regular session. Shares passed $200 for the first time since late 2007. Wall Street has been impressed by rebounding momentum in the Mac business and Apple’s leadership in the battle for smartphones — the versatile phones that make calls and run thousands of applications

Moreover, the return of Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive, to the public spotlight at an Apple event in September to introduce new iPods has calmed fears about management turbulence at the company.
Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., posted particularly strong gains in the computer segment while many of its rivals were still struggling to recover from the recession’s impact on consumer spending. Apple said it sold 3.05 million Macs in the quarter, up about 17 percent from the 2.6 million it sold in the same quarter last year. Global PC sales rose 2.3 percent in the third quarter of the year, according to the market tracking firm IDC.

Mac sales were also helped by renewed back-to-school buying and the June introduction of Snow Leopard, the latest version of its Mac operating system. Macintosh sales have now grown faster than the rest of the PC market in 19 of the last 20 quarters.

Source:- http://www.ocala.com/