Apple reported slightly-better-than-expected results for its latest quarter, citing strong notebook sales, though profits were still down from last year.
In a Wednesday afternoon earnings report, the computer maker posted a profit of $14 million, or 4 cents a share, for the first three months of 2003. Earnings were down from the same period last year, when Apple (AAPL) posted a profit of $40 million, or 11 cents a share.
Nonetheless, the results came in slightly ahead of the consensus estimate among analysts surveyed by First Call, which called for a profit of 2 cents per share.
In a prepared statement, Jobs credited the quarterly profit largely to strong sales of notebook computers, including its recently introduced 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBook G4s.
"This quarter, over 40 percent of the Macs we shipped were notebooks -- our highest percentage ever and well ahead of the industry average," Jobs said.
Overall, Apple shipped 711,000 Macintosh units during the quarter. Revenues for the quarter were $1.475 billion, down 1 percent from the same period last year.
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Sun Ekes Out a Gain: Sun Microsystems reported earnings that were barely better than break-even for its latest quarter, in what the company described as challenging economic environment. The Santa Clara, California, company posted income for the first three months of the year, its fiscal third quarter, of $4 million or zero cents per share compared with a net loss of $37 million or a net loss of $.01 per share for the third quarter of fiscal 2002.
The consensus estimate among analysts surveyed by First Call forecast earnings for Sun (SUNW) of zero cents a share.
Revenues for the quarter were $2.790 billion, down 10.2 percent as compared with $3.107 billion for the same period last year.
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AMD Posts Loss: Advanced Micro Devices posted a larger first-quarter loss from a year ago, but beat expectations on sales in its most recent quarter.
The microprocessor maker reported a loss of $146 million, or 42 cents a share, compared to a loss of $9.16 million, or 3 cents a share, a year earlier.
Sales for the quarter totaled $715 million, down from $902 million in the same period last year.
Analysts, on average, had expected the company to post a per-share loss of 48 cents and sales of $683 million, according to First Call.
AMD (AMD) said it believed it gained market share in its PC processor and Flash memory product lines and said it believes that processor sales will be flat to up in the current quarter.
