A Great Year for Apple

This Thursday, Apple released their report to the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC). In this Form 10-K report, the company provides a detailed overview of its activities over the past fiscal year, which ended in late September.

Among other things, Mac net sales increased 27 percent year over year - to the tune of US$1.4 billion in review. Mac unit sales also went up by 1.2 million units, while the average price of a Mac is down by 7 percent. This is hardly surprising since Apple has begun making a move for the low-end market with the Mac mini.

In the educational market, an area where Apple was once the king of the hill, the company has seen a 21 percent year-over-year growth in net and unit sales in higher education, and 11 percent growth in the K-12 market.

The Music Store and the iPod were, not surprisingly, an important part of Apple's revenue with 8 million iPods, 248 percent revenue and 409 percent unit increase year over year and Music Store sales totaling $621 million in revenue.

With such a good year, it's not surprising that Apple has opened 38 new brick and mortar retail stores this past year. Retail sales were almost double when compared to last year, reaching $2.4 billion, while annualized revenue per store is reported to be $22.4 million.