iPod's popularity continues to drive Apple's bull run

iPod's popularity continues to drive Apple's bull run

	Published : Wed, 12 Oct 2005 16:05 By : Paula Demarzio Print this Story

SAN FRANCISCO - The time has come for the world to change its tune a little bit. It is no longer Apple's iPod as much as it is iPod's Apple! For the fourth quarter results of the Cupertino, Calif-based Company clearly demonstrates that nothing sells as much as the music player that has driven the world insane.

Apple Computer's annual profit's topped $1 billion in a year that has seen the launch of the iPod Nano, a card sized version of the original. Apple officials admitted that the demand for these devices was outstripping the supply in many important markets. The world's first iTunes enabled phone, the Motorola RAZR was also introduced last month and the jury is still out on the verdict for that segment. But iPod shipments missed the forecasts by a long way, Apple shipped 6.16 million units in the third quarter way below the expected 8.5 million units.

The Nano sales have hit the 1 million mark, but Apple said that it was unable to fuel the demand at the moment. Apple shares, which were up $1.22 to $51.59 in the regular trading session, fell $5.51 to $46.50 in extended trading session. Overall revenue topped $3.68 billion - up from $2.35 billion in the previous year's revenues, but once again short of the $3.73 billion predicted by analysts. This has led to speculation that Apple's stock has been overestimated and that a correction could happen anytime.

On the computer front, Apple shipped 1.24 million Macs in the quarter. This is the fourth time that the sales have topped the million mark. Analysts expect more down to earth results in the forthcoming quarters. Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research said, "As you are seeing with stock's reaction in the after hours, given where the stock was, they had to produce a flawless quarter and they didn't. Apple is a great company, but in our opinion the stock was overbought, and now it's going to correct a little bit."