Bucking the national economic downturn and generally poor results in the computer industry, Apple reported sales of $8.34 billion during the third quarter of 2009, an increase over the same quarter of 2008 and the previous quarter. It was the third-highest revenue in the company’s history, bested only by the most recent holiday quarters. The retail stores posted revenues of $1.5 billion, the fourth-best in the chain’s history, and a profit of $321 million, another fourth-best. Macintosh sales totaled 492,000, yet another fourth-best. CFO Peter Oppenheimer confirmed that Apple would open its first Paris store during the holiday quarter, and that the company was on-track to open 25 new stores this fiscal year.
The Paris store that Oppenheimer mentioned is most likely the one located inside the underground Carousel de Louvre shopping mall, adjacent to the famous Louvre Museum.
The company posted an overall profit of $1.23 billion, higher than Q2 2008 or the previous quarter, and the third-highest profit in history. Most significantly, the company sold 2.6 million Macintosh computers during the quarter and 10.2 million iPods, up four percent and seven percent respectively. The company also sold 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter, more than six times sales for the same quarter of 2008. The company will release more figures, including for the retail stores, during a conference call this afternoon.
Oppenheimer said that, “about half the Macs sold in our stores during the quarter were to customers who never owned a Mac before.” That figure is the same as Apple has reported for the past two years.
The stores hosted 38.6 million visitors, fewer than the previous three quarters, but more than Q3 2008.
Six new stores were opened during the quarter, and 27 stores were remodeled. Oppenheimer said 100 stores would be remodeled by the end of September.
There was an average of 254 stores open during the quarter, with average per-store sales of $5.9 million, exactly the same as the previous quarter.
The stores provided 667,000 personal training sessions during the quarter, Oppenheimer said.
Two financial figures took a bounce during the quarter. Previously, the number of employees and capital asset purchases had declined significantly in Q2 2009. But the number of full-time equivalent employees increased this quarter, to 16,500. Spending on capital assets also bounced up, to $101 million.
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