Apple posts $410 million of profit for Q2 (UPDATE)

Today Apple Computer has released its second quarter financial results. The company posted a profit of $410 million and revenue of $4.36 billion.

Analysts were expecting between $4.2 and $4.8 billion of revenue for this quarter and unit sales between 8 million and 9 million iPods and nearly 1 million Macs. During the quarter, Apple sold 8.5 million iPods and 1.1 million Macs.

Guidance for the next quarter is from $4.2 to $4.4 billion of revenue and earnings per share of about $0.39 to $0.43.

Apple's shares are trading at more than 3% higher to nearly $68 after the markets' close.

We'll be providing information from the Q2 Financial Conf Call webcast as updates of this posting.

UPDATE - Live Webcast coverage :
- new campus to be built in Cupertino for about 3000 employees
- $8.2 billion of cash
- Intel transition going well
- excited about products in the pipeline

UDPATE 2 - Q/A notes:
- Software sales better than expected
- UBS: iPod demand? Q1 was seasonally a better quarter, and there was inventory from Q1
- UBS: iPod/Macs guidance? Transition going well, education sales expected, unannounced products will help sales for Q3
- retail stores are focsing on the Intel transition
- Piper Jaffrey: iPod Market share? increased 78% (from 71%) based on NPD study. Increasing in all countries.
- PJ: Mac mini price increase? What market direction? addition of Front Row and other features make it attractive
- PJ: School season? When is the iBook coming out? No comment
- Ritch: iPod Seasonnal trends: We don't have good historical data to answer for the iPod
- Internationnal stores? No comment, 30 new stores in the united states
- Is the iBook G4 (non updated) going to hurt education sales? Are you going to drop price? No comment
- Inventories of Desktop and Notebook (difference)? Targeting 4 to 5 weeks. We don't split Desktop/Notebook figures.
- Gross margins and flash memory price reflected on iPod's pricing? iPod shuffle price already dropped to reflect the flash memory prices
- Music sales? Higher in the March quarter than they were in the December quarter. We're expecting to gain momentum.
- Intel-based Macs shipments? Accelerrated during Q2. Good cunsomer response.
- Why Boot Camp? Response to customers' demand, making the make more attractive for switchers.
- Boot Camp... Will Apple add virtualization or leave it to third-party? Depends on interest and data on Boot Camp interest. We don't provide Boot Camp downloads data.
- Questions on Intel transition and sales: Intel iMac is selling well this quarter, Mac mini selling well too, difficult to compare PowerPC and Intel Mac mini sales (not exactly the same market?)...
- iPod gross margins question? We don't want to give this to our competitors.
- The advantage during the last quarter on flash chips was the core of the iPod margin.
- We have no plans/desire to sell/support Windows directly. No corporate target.
- JP: market constrains for this Q? No specific.
- JP: France's DRM law? the french law results in a state consious piracy.
- JP: iTunes Music Store profitability? break-even in march quarter
- We are really excited about products in the pipeline in all lines of products.
- audio was cut for a moment
- Mac locations around the world? 70 000
- 2nd Campus? Multiple locations are much less efficient. Expect to break ground in a few years. The idiea is to consolidate in two campuses.
- Stock is now up 4.58% to $68.66 in AH trading session.

Note that data is not exhaustive.