Apple this week announced its fourth-quarter financial results. The computer company-turned-smartphone visionary took in $7.9 billion of revenue and profit of $1.14 billion, a significant increase from revenue of $6.22 billion and profit of $904 million in the fourth quarter last year.
Apple shipped 2.6 million Macintosh computers, 11 million iPod music players and nearly 6.9 million iPhone smartphones.
“Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone—we sold more phones than RIM,” co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs said. “We don’t yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple,” although the company has $25 billion in cash and no debt, he noted.
The smartphone front certainly is not quiet. Apple faces stiff competition with new releases such as the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Research In Motion BlackBerry Bold, Sprint Instinct, T-Mobile G1 and a variety of Windows Mobile devices.