Sales And Profits up at Apple

Shares in technology company Apple dropped 7% in after hours trading despite the company reporting increased profits of $4.3 billion for the latest quarter. The net income figure was up 70% on a year earlier and easily beat expectations of $3.8 billion.

Shares in Apple have hit historic highs recently and the drop in share price may be because speculators are selling to lock in profits. At close of trading on the NASDAQ Apple’s shares were at $318.3, up more than 50% since March.

Another reason for the after hours sell-off may be due to sales of Apple’s new tablet computer, the iPad, being flat at just 4.2 million. This is only an increase of 28% on the previous quarter, which was when the iPad was launched.

However Apple will be pleased that sales of the newly launched iPhone 4 were not affected by bad publicity over and antenna problems. The company sold 14.1 million of the smart phones in the quarter.

Total revenue for the third quarter reached $20.3 billion, beating already high expectations by $1 billion, largely due to the strong iPhone 4 sales.

Sales of Macintosh computers increased by 27% on a year ago but sales of iPods were down by 11%, mainly because the iPod has been superseded by the iPhone.

Revenue forecasts for the final quarter of the year have now been revised by Apple to $23 billion.