Apple’s Fourth-quarter results are out, and they’re a doozy. Apple has posted a profit of $546 million on over $4.8 billion in revenue in the Fourth Quarter of fiscal year 2006. Apple shipped over 1.6 million Macs and more than 8.7 million iPods, which is higher than what some analysts projected. Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster expected around 8.2 million iPod shipments and 1.47 million Macs, according to AppleInsider. Mac sales grew at a torrid 30% rate over last year; iPods saw a 35% increase in sales.

From the press release:

“This strong quarter caps an extraordinary year for Apple. Selling more than 39 million iPods and 5.3 million Macs while performing an incredibly complex architecture transition is something we are all very proud of,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Looking forward, 2007 is likely to be one of the most exciting new product years in Apple’s history.”

“We are pleased to have finished the year with over $10 billion in cash and to have increased annual revenue by $11 billion in the last two years,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2007, we expect revenue of $6.0 to $6.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of $.70 to $.73.”

Apple does note that these financial results are “preliminary” due to the ongoing stock options issue and and that “Such charges [related to the stock options investigation] may result in material changes to the Company’s financial statements, including those covering the periods presented in this release.”

Be certain to listen to Apple’s earnings conference call if such things like gross margins interest you at all.

From the conference call

-best Mac shipements ever
-32% year over year revenue growth
-Mac products: 58% revenue; record Mac sales
-strong Mac sales fueled by notebooks; nearly 1 million sold
-over 4000 Universal apps available
-Music: 36% increase in revenue over last year
-iPod sales fueled by back-to-school promotion and new models
-iTunes Store: 85% of legal download market according to latest numbers
-Apple retail stores: $936 million in revenue, $50 million profit
-stores sold record 323,000 Macs
-over 50% of Apple Store Mac buyers new to the Mac
-Education: record Mac sales; 20% year-over-year growth, strongest back-to-school quarter ever for higher ed.
-Apple ends quarter with over $10.1 billion in cash
-outlook for Q1 2007: $6-6.2 billion revenue; 28.25% gross margin; 70-73 cents per share in profit
-Apple “Very proud of” FY 2006
-$19.3 billion revenue for the year, over 5.3 million Macs shipped
-Questions…
-Q: RE: Jobs’ comment about 2007’s product comment in press release: what does that mean? A: Apple doesn’t comment on future products, has great stuff in pipeline
-Music sales fairly flat throughout the quarter; summer tends to be slower for sales
-Q: why Japan CPU sales down? A: Mac unit sales down year over year; Japan market weak currently, but Japan revenue up strongly due to iPod sales
-Q: Jobs’ role in options investigation? A: Reiterated that there was no misconduct by Jobs
-Q: how will Leopard impact Mac sales? A: Already factored into guidance for Q1 2007
-Q: new iPod nano demand compared to last year? A: strong customer reception; iPod demand increased after launch, allowed Apple to surpass their expectations
-Q: How much of strong Mac sales is pent-up demand? A: combination of completing Intel transition, strong customer response, strong education sales
-Q: When will iPod shuffle will ship? A: By the end of October
-Q: Boot Camp downloads? A: Over 1 million downloads
-Q: How much did back-to-school promotion boost iPod sales? A: a big factor, but won’t state exact figures
-Q: How Universal apps will impact Mac Pro purchasing? A: Apple seeing people holding off purchasing
-Q: Could virtualization be in Leopard? A: won’t specify, beyond stating Leopard set to ship Spring 2007
-Q: international promotions? A: promo with Coca-Cola in Europe; planning to give away 70 million free iTunes songs
-Q: iTunes in international markets regarding video, movies, etc..? A: planning to take movies international in 2007
-Q: iTV feedback? estimates on shipments? A: Not projecting shipments, will ship early 2007
-Q: consumer trends for holiday season? A: Economy slowing, but “headed for soft landing” according to economists and “consumers are resilient”
-Q: Attracting more movie studios to iTunes? A: plan to add more over time (unclear if he meant add more films or more studios or both)
-Q: pickup of demand after iPod/iMac launch? A: acceleration in iPod sales, iMac was “well received”

Conference call is over.

Full disclosure: The writer of this article holds a small chunk of Apple stock, which was not a factor in the writing of this article. In fact, it was as big a factor to this article as grape jelly is; that is to say, it wasn’t a factor. So there.

UPDATED 18 Oct 2006 11:22 PM PDT; minor fixes.