In October, Apple said it expected earnings of $1.70 to $1.78 on revenue of $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion. Wall Street's latest expectations were $2.08 and $12.08 billion, respectively.

I think is the "what recession" thing.

Wallstreet expected more.

Apple ALWAYS lowballs their expectations, just look at every quarterly statement.

That's just how they role though, they do other ideas people thought wouldn't work, then brand them with their own brand, and are the first out.  Thus no matter who makes a better product, they can't win because of the Apple brand.

It's one of the "bonus" of innovation.  If you brand your innovation right... anyone who copies it won't get the same sales, even if they make their product "better".

Brand increases enjoyment of a product just like any tangiable aspect.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, they did report more and beat Wall Street estimates handily.

Apple reported a quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 a share, up from $2.26 billion, or $2.50 a share, a year earlier. Revenue increased to $15.68 billion from $11.88 billion.

What's really scary is they have nearly $30 billion in cash holdings.

It always amuses me when people start bitching about Apple pricing and proudly saying how they are all above it themselves.

Apple's customer satisfaction is one of the highest in the industry, so obviously the price for their products is justified. And honestly I don't see other brands offerings are dramatically different in price, in US at least. It is different situation in Europe, and this may explain why Apple is mush less popular there. It sucks though that such a outstanding corporation is being rather domestic than global, obviously their only prime is Americans, but seems like Apple doesn't care ATM.

Anyways, people shouting about how Apple pricing is outrageous should think about themselves being hypocrites next time they use Windows. Microsoft operating margins in financial reports are not lesser to Apple's one, yet no one complain! And for home usage there are much cheaper or totally free alternatives in the market, but everyone is happy to pay for Windows / Office and go bitching on iPod price. LOL.

Personally I'm owning nothing from Apple, but I can see why people are kept interested in them. And their products are always there in my personal purchasing options, too. If it were not for Nokia handsets, I would have ended with iPhone in my pocket.

So learn your homework people: the price of Apple products IS competive, and user experience is just superior. Deal with it.

Well Apple sells computers so that makes for a lot of revenue. Big revenue doesn't mean they're bigger as a company though.

For example imagine you make a company which buys computers for $1000, paints them red and resells them for $1050. You'll have huge revenue for a company with one employee, but that doesn't make it a big company.

But the $3.38 billion 'earnings' means gross profit right? So with $3.38 billion profit from $15.68 billion revenue means their gross margin must also be fairly high. At least a lot higher than your described computer painter lol.

Their profit is great, no doubt about that... I was just talking about the revenue part.

Their gross margin is even better, 40.9% which is huge. The $3.38 billion is not gross profit, it's operating profit I think (so after subtracting things like employee salaries from the gross profit, but before subtracting taxes and such).

Btw, having a chance to look deaper at their results, I noticed that iPhone sales were lesser than expected. I think this is another indication that iPhone now has strong competitors in US (RIM and Android) and struggle in Europe vs. spawns of Nokia 5800 and Samsung Corby. Also, it doesn't help that mobile market is fashion-driven (at least in it's premium segment) and iPhone's look basically didn't changed a bit since its birth.