Today Apple announced the availability of the second version of the iPad, aka the iPad 3G. For those of you who’ve been waiting for some iPad goodness, you have a definitive date to count the minutes until: April 30, 2010. In addition, those of you who pre-ordered the 3G iPad should start to receive shipments the same day.
The iPad 3G will set you back $130 premium more than the Wi-Fi-only iPad. You will also get the pleasure of using AT&T’s 3G network for your needs but in a somewhat surprising move, you won’t have to agree to a teo-year contract in order to do so.
The 3G service from AT&T will be available on an as-needed basis. In other words, if you need it for a day, you pay for a day. A month? Pay for a month. That’s quite a bit better than having to stick with a company for a minimum of two years, especially given their relatively poor track record of network performance.
On a related note, Apple also announced its second quarter earnings today and, no big surprise, the numbers look pretty good. It reported adjusted earnings of $3.33 per share, well above Wall Street estimates.
Total revenues were $13.5 Billion. That’s more than $700 millon above even the most optimistic predictions. Gross margins up to 41.7 percent, from 39.9 percent a year ago.
Here’s the official word from Apple’s Press Release:
CUPERTINO, California-April 20, 2010-Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 second quarter ended March 27, 2010. The Company posted revenue of $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.08 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.62 billion, or $1.79 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.7 percent, up from 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
Apple sold 2.94 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.75 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 131 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 10.89 million iPods during the quarter, representing a one percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
“We’re thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49 percent and profits up 90 percent,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year.”
“Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $13.0 billion to $13.4 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $2.28 to $2.39,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.
Glad to see everything working well for a company that not so long ago most people considered a failure and soon to go out of business. Oh how times have changed.
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