Stan's List

CUPERTINO, California—January 17, 2007—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2007 first quarter ended December 30, 2006. The Company posted record revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.0 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $5.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $565 million, or $.65 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 31.2 percent, up from 27.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 42 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 1,606,000 Macintosh® computers and 21,066,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 28 percent growth in Macs and 50 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter.

‘We are incredibly pleased to report record quarterly revenue of over $7 billion and record earnings of $1 billion,’ said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. ‘We’ve just kicked off what is going to be a very strong new product year for Apple by launching Apple TV and the revolutionary iPhone.’ More …

According to Tech.co.uk, Apple is in the works to allow “Made For iPod” licensees that would be able to decode the “FairPlay” DRM encryption used on iTunes Music Store’s products. This move (if true) would be a huge change from Apple’s usual stance which has been to jealously protect its protection scheme from being used by other manufacturers.