iPhone demand boosts Apple profit

| Friday April 23, 2010 00:00

It made a net profit of $3.1bn (£2bn) while revenue rose 49 percent to $13.5bn in the three months to 27 March.Apple said it sold about nine million of its popular smart phone - more than double the figure from a year earlier. And it shipped almost three million Macs and about ten million iPods. The period did not include the iPad launch.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said the results were 'our best non-holiday quarter ever'. The profits were well ahead of market expectations, and sent its shares about 6 percent higher.

Apple sold more than 300,000 of its iPad tablet computer, on its launch day in the US. The device goes on sale in Europe next month. 'We have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year,' Jobs added.

Meanwhile an upturn in online advertising helped profits at internet firm Yahoo almost treble in the three months to the end of March.

Net profit rose to $310m (£200m) from $118m in the same period a year ago. The company's takings were helped by its search and advertising partnership with Microsoft and sake of the Zimbra email service.

But after subtracting commissions paid to its advertising partners, Yahoo's revenue slipped slightly to $1.13bn.

This was below analyst's estimates - pushing Yahoo shares about 3 percent lower in after hours trading.

The firm's chief financial officer, Tim Morse, said that its search advertising business 'just didn't seem to grow at the pace they had previously'.

However its display advertising business was strong, growing 20 percent year-on-year. 'High-quality advertisers are coming back,' Morse said. 'We are still in the very early innings of this turnaround.'

Earlier this year, Microsoft's plans to buy Yahoo's internet search and search advertising businesses were cleared by both European and US regulators. The European Commission ruled that the deal 'would not significantly impede effective competition'.

Under the deal, Yahoo's website uses a Microsoft's Bing search engine, and the two firms share the revenues.Microsoft is seeking to increase its share of the search engine industry, which is dominated by Google. (BBC)