Apple just had another monster quarter. In fact it had such a big quarter that the soaring stock price in after-hours trading will result in it being the biggest, most valuable company in the world. Yes, it will be even bigger than Exxon Mobil. The company’s fourth quarter earnings more than doubled from a year ago and came in well ahead of analysts’ expectations.
The company sold 37.04 million iPhones last quarter, up 128% by units from a year ago. It sold 15.43 million iPads, up 111% and it also sold 5.2 million Macs, up 26%. the 15.43 million units sold of iPads alone have surpassed HP’s worldwide PC sales of 14.7 million, Lenovo’s 12.9 million and Dell’s 11.6 million units. As a result, Apple has now surpassed HP in both computer unit sales and revenues, and is now the biggest computer maker.
The sheer dominance is now staggering. And what about potential rivals like Amazon Kindle Fire denting iPad sales? Not so much. It didn’t even register!
The scary thing is that Apple still has so much more potential for growth and is not likely to slow down. The iPad3 is rumored to be launching soon and iPhone 5 is also in the works. CEO Tim Cook, who took over after Steve Jobs, said he expects the tablet to keep “cannibalizing” PC sales. Cook also emphasized that although iPad sales were diminishing the PC business, it is not affecting Mac sales.
What’s more, iPhone 4S only just started selling in China this month. That is bound to drive up the sales of the device in this new quarter.
Apple also recently launched the iBooks 2, its foray into the lucrative textbook business. That is already off to a promising start.
Oh, it is also sitting on cash holdings of $97.6 billion. Only 25 companies in the entire S&P 500 have market caps higher than that.
