Apple Crushing 4th Quarter

Apple crushed revenue and earnings estimates, as expected, and the company's guidance looks strong for its holiday quarter. But the iPad business posted a huge miss: 4.19 million shipments versus the Street's consensus at 4.7 million and many estimates above 5 million due to a supply issue, noting that supply and demand weren't balanced until September, the last month of the quarter.

Steve Jobs stole the show on the call, trashing competitors like RIM and Google, and suggesting that the iPad and iPhone will win against rivals because they are better products at great prices and holding onto its cash in excess of $50 billion now which put them in great position for any strategic acquisition.

On the positive side, Apple's iPhone business posted huge numbers despite the "Antennagate" moving 14.1 million phones last quarter, and boasted in its press release that this beat RIM's most recent quarter, when it shipped 12.1 million BlackBerry devices.

Key Stats:

• Revenue: $20.34 billion vs. $18.9 billion consensus;
• iPad shipments: 4.19 million vs. 4.7 million consensus (via Piper Jaffray); accounted for $2.8 billion in total revenue
• iPhone shipments: 14.1 million vs. 11 million consensus (via Piper Jaffray); The iPhone continues to be the biggest money maker for Apple, accounting for $8.8 billion in revenue, with an average selling price of about $610
• Mac shipments: 3.89 million vs. 3.7 million consensus (via Piper Jaffray)
• iPod shipments: 9.05 million vs. 10 million consensus (via Piper Jaffray)
• Apple TV device : 250,000 units sold
• Sales in the Americas generated $7.2 billion in revenue. Europe accounted for $5.4 billion and Asia Pacific was $2.7 billion.
• iTunes had revenue of more than $1B for the quarter.

It was also confirmed by Jobs that Apple isnt working on a smaller iPad based around a 7-inch screen giving reason that it would be too small to express the software.