New Products in Apple’s Pipeline, CFO Oppenheimer Confirms

Not long after reporting a 47% rise in the fourth quarter earnings, Apple's Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer, disclosed the company's plans, which include fresh, new products, with small price tags. Oppenheimer explained to analysts that Apple foresaw a lower growth in future revenues, as well as profit margins due to cheap, new products in the company's pipeline, according to an AppleInsider report.

The website reveals that Oppenheimer broke the news to the world in response to questions from Richard Gardner of CitiGroup asking, "Why gross margin should be down as much as you have it" in the company's future guidance. Oppenheimer’s answer was, "We expect gross margin to decline about 34% primarily due to four factors. First," Oppenheimer said, were "new products we have and will announce, delivering greater value, lower gross margin than predecessors." Apple’s CFO pointed out to existing products with "lower ASPs [average selling prices]."

In response to a question about how the $99 iPhone 3G affected iPhone 3GS sales, Chief Operations Officer Tim Cook also noted that, "The demand for the [iPhone] 3GS did exceed expectation; we quickly changed our orders for components." Cook added, "I think it shows there's an intense appetite for Apple's latest technology and we were very pleased with the result."

According to the official report issued by Apple yesterday, the company saw a revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share in fiscal Q4 2009. Apple confirmed its most profitable quarter ever, comparing revenue of $7.9 billion and the net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. The gross margin was of 36.6 percent (up from 34.7 percent in the year-ago quarter), while the Mac maker’s international sales accounted for 46 percent of the quarter’s revenue. The news shot up Apple’s 6.5% stock to over $200 a share.