More than 4-million iPads sold, but fall short of expectations

Apple said on Monday that it had sold 3.89 million Mac computers during the quarter, up 27 percent from a year ago, 14.1 million iPhones, up 91 percent from a year ago, and 4.19 million iPads, up from 3.3 million the previous quarter.

Apple shares were down 5.34 percent as iPad sales fell short of expectations. Analysts had expected Apple to sell as many as five million iPads during the quarter.

The company’s quarterly net profit soared 70 percent to 4.31 billion dollars on strong sales of its key products: Macintosh computers, iPhones and iPads.

Apple reported record revenue of 20.34 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, up from 12.21 billion dollars a year ago.

Apple said it sold 9.05 million iPods during the quarter, down 11 percent from a year ago.

“We are blown away to report over 20 billion dollars in revenue and over four billion in after-tax earnings-both all-time records for Apple,” Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said in a statement.

“iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter,” he said.

Canada’s Research In Motion, or RIM, is the maker of the Blackberry.

“We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year,” Jobs said.

Apple chief financial offer Peter Oppenheimer said the company expected revenue of 23 billion dollars during the current quarter. – AFP