Edible Apple

Below are some notes of interest from Apple’s recent earnings conference call:

Year over year Mac growth was relatively low at 2%, but still higher than 1% for the broader PC market..

Apple recorded all time quarterly highs for iPad sales and new Q3 2012 records for iPhone and Mac sales.

Apple sold 26 million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 20.3 million last year. That amounts to 28% year over year growth. Helping this, no doubt, is the fact that the iPhone is now on 250 carriers in over 100 countries.

iPad wise, Apple sold 17 million units compared to 9.2 million last year in the same quarter. That’s an increase of 84%. Apple also highlighted that it sold 1 million iPads to education institutions. Interestingly, Apple specifically noted that iPad 2 sales were a hit with the K-12 market.

Translation? People want cheaper tablets! And with reports of an iPad Mini swirling about, it seems that Apple is reading the message loud and clear.

Apple also highlighted some noteworthy education-based purchases of Macs, such as Rutherford County, North Carolina which purchased 6,000 MacBoko Airs.

iPod sales checked in at 6.8 million units compared to 7.5 million in the year ago quarter. Still, this was more than Apple was expecting. Incidentally, we reported previously on a rumor that Apple will be revamping both the iPod Touch and the iPod Nano this coming Fall.

Not surprisingly, the iPod Touch accounts for more than half of all iPods sold. The rumored iPod Touch refresh will likely have a 4-inch screen.

There are now over 20 million songs on iTunes

The iTunes App Store now sports over 650,000 applications, with 225,000 of them specifically designed for the iPad.

Impressively, Apple has cumulatively paid out over $5.5 billion to developers.

Regarding Apple’s retail operations, revenue rose 17% to come in at $4.1 billion. There are 372 Apple Stores in total around the world now, with 123 of them located outside the US. On average, Apple retail handles about 17,000 visitors per store per week. All told, 80.3 million folks stopped in an Apple Store last quarter.

Apple’s cash hoard now stands at $117.2 billion, with with $81 billion of that being offshore.