Apple’s Jobs gets an airplane as profits soar

Apple Computer once again beat Wall Street forecasts with a $183 million

profit as sales of iMac and iBook computers remained strong in the first

quarter, which ended December 31. To reward Steve Jobs for his work these past

two year, Apple has presented Jobs with a $90-million airplane and $1.2 billion

in stock options.

Apple's sales rose an impressive 37 per cent to $2.34 billion from $1.7

billion a year ago. $300 million worth of products were sold from Apple's Online

store. "We are delighted that Apple is delivering strong growth on every

front -- revenues, profits and units -- and in particular that our unit growth

last quarter was 2.5 times higher than the industry average, which leads

directly to market share growth,'' said Steve Jobs, now Apple's permanent chief

executive. "Apple also continues to deliver the best asset management in

the industry, ending the quarter with less than one day of inventory,'' he said.

"It was an incredible quarter from a revenues standpoint,'' added Apple

Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson. "Our three new iMacs were incredibly

well-received in the marketplace.'' Apple said it sold 1.38 million systems in

the last three months of the year, including more than 700,000 iMac consumer

desktops and 235,000 iBook consumer portables, for year-over-year unit growth of

46 percent. On the business side, Apple sold 350,000 of its powerful G4

computers and 80,000 PowerBook laptops.

"We continue to look for significant year-over-year growth in units and

revenues,'' said Anderson. "This will be the year of growth for Apple.''

Foreign sales accounted for 51 per cent of Apple's revenues, fueled by a 98 per

cent jump in shipments to Japan and a 50 per cent increase in shipments to

Europe. Since his return to Apple, Jobs has been paid just $1 per year. While he

is not getting any increase following his decision to become the company's

permanent CEO, Apple's board voted to grant him options to purchase 10 million

shares of Apple common stock (with a current market value of $1.2 billion) and

give him a $90 million Gulfstream V airplane.

"Steve saved the company, when you get right down to it. His skills, his

creativity, saved this company from near-death, and we felt we had to do

something to get him to stay around,'' said Apple Board member Ed Woolard, who

pointed out that Apple's market value has risen from less than $2 billion to

over $16 billion under Jobs' leadership.