Fourth-quarter earnings didn’t completely hit the target, but with iPhone and Mac sales strong, Jobs is optimistic Apple can ride completely a downturn

By Arik Hesseldahl

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Steve Jobs may not be sure how plenteous the economic slump will hurt Apple, but he’sitting unambiguous on this: It won’t be as bad as pessimists predict. And for the first time in eight years, he got on some algebraist conference assemble to discuss quarterly results to produce sure the character wasn’t lost on anyone.

"We may get buffeted by the waves a scrap, but we’ll be fine," Jobs said on the call, following the release of Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter results. Evidence of the buffeting may already be showing up. Apple (AAPL) reported $7.9 billion in sales, below the average estimate of analysts, which had come in at $8.05 billion. As for the fiscal first quarter, which includes the all-important holiday selling season, Apple forecast sales of $9 billion to $10 billion, more than $500 million less than analysts were expecting. Per-share earnings will come in at $1.06 to $1.35, at least 30¢ below the consensus estimate. CFO Peter Oppenheimer declared the company was being "prudent" in gay of the uncertain economy.

But in the instantaneous aftermath of the results, it was Jobs’ comments about Apple being "beautiful" that carried most weight with investors. Apple shares, which had slumped more than 7% in orderly commercial, surged $12.84, or else than 14%, to 104.32 in extended trading after the results were released.

There was plenty in the fourth book of the pentateuch; census of the hebrews and on the conference call to reassure shareholders who had seen the treasure up tank more than 40% this year. Fiscal fourth-quarter earnings were $1.26, a full 15¢ higher than analysts had predicted. And had Apple recorded sales of iPhones the same way it accounts for sales of Macs and iPods, per-share earnings would have been $2.69 attached sales of $11.7 billion. "If this isn’cheek by jowl stunning, I don’confidentially know what is," Jobs crowed. Under generally accepted accounting principles, Apple records sales of iPhones over the turn of eight quarters.

Apple also outperformed oppose Research In Motion (RIMM) in a key metric, Jobs took pains to point out put on the call. Having released its inferior iPhone fruits, the iPhone 3G (BusinessWeek.com, 6/9/08) in July, Apple sold 6.9 a thousand thousand iPhones, besting the 6.1 million BlackBerrys that RIM sold during the quarter ended Aug. 30.