Live notes from Apple's fiscal Q1 financial results conference call

Company gives more details on its record quarter, while being grilled about its future strategy - with or without Steve Jobs

A few minutes ago, Apple announced its fiscal Q1 2011 financials, including record revenues ($26.74 billion - up 71% year-on-year) and profits ($6 billion - up 78% YoY), on the back of 16.24 million iPhone sales and 7.33 million iPad sales.

The company followed up with its financial conference call, which ME listened in on. Here's some live notes on what was said over and above the original announcement, with a focus on mobile entertainment implications (i.e. we're sparing you the lengthy sections on components).

CFO PETER OPPENHEIMER

- iPod touch sales grew 27% year-on-year, and accounted for more than 50% of iPod sales for the quarter (i.e. more than 9.7 million units).

- iTunes Store generated revenues of more than $1.1 billion during the quarter thanks to music, video and app sales.

- $10.1 billion from iPhone sales alone during the quarter. "We believe we could have sold even more iPhones if we had been able to supply them." - there's a backlog.

- iPad now available in 46 countries. $4.4 billion sales value of iPads alone during the quarter.

- Apple reached more than 160 million cumulative iOS device sales by the end of the December quarter.

- "We continue to be very pleased with iAd" - but no figures on revenues or bookings, just the comment that iAd expanded to Europe and Japan during the last quarter.

- Apple has $59.7 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Imagine how many Angry Birds plush toys you could buy with that...

Q&A SESSION - JOINED BY COO TIM COOK

- How quickly can shortages of iPhones and iPads be addressed? Cook said Apple increased the supply of iPads "dramatically" last quarter, helping it to add 20 new territories during the quarter, with 15 more coming in January to take it to over 60. And iPhone 4? "I feel very very good about what we've been able to do. However it's not enough," said Cook. "We are working around the clock to build more."

- How far out is Apple planning in terms of its product roadmap? A coded question alluding to when the impact of Steve Jobs' absence will be felt. Cook: "In my view, Apple is doing its best work ever. We are all very happy with product pipeline. And the team here has an unparalleled breadth and depth of talent, and a culture of innovation that Steve has driven in the company. And excellence has become a habit. We're still very very confident about the future of the company."

- How is Apple viewing the competitive landscape for iPad, with new devices coming out? Cook: "There's not much out there as you know... generally speaking there's two kinds of groups today. The ones that are using a Windows-based operating system are generally fairly big and heavy and expensive, they have very weak battery life, they require a keyboard or stylus as an input device... Frankly, customers are just not interested in them. Then you have the Android tablets. The variety that are out shipping today, the operating system wasn't really designed for the tablet. Google has said this, it's not just an Apple view by any means. So you wind up having a size of a tablet that is less than we believe is reasonable... You end up with kind of a scaled-up smartphone, which is a bizarre product in our view... It's hard for me to understand if somebody does a side-by-side with an iPad, some enormous percentage of people are gonna select an iPad there."

Worth quoting (almost) in full, no?

- However, Cook talked about the next generation of Android tablets too - "there's nothing shipping yet, so I don't know. They lack performance specs, they lack prices, they lack timing. Today, they're vapour. We'll assess them as they come out. However, we're not sitting still. We have a huge first-mover advantage and incredible experience, from iTunes to the App Store, an enormous number of apps and a huge ecosystem. So we're very very confident in entering in a fight from anyone."

- Will more CDMA carriers get the iPhone going forward, now there's a CDMA version for Verizon? Cook: "We're always looking and assessing in every country who we should be doing business with, and exploring different deals and arrangements etc. We'll continue to do that... Where we've moved from an exclusive carrier arrangement to a dual or multi carrier arrangement, our growth has changed significantly and our market share has increased."

- Cook talked about iPad having "some cannibalisation" of Mac sales, but also "a halo effect from Apple product to Apple product", with iPad introducing people in Asia particularly to Apple as a company, with some of them then going on to buy Macs as a result. "If this is cannibalisation, it feels pretty good..."

- Cook again: "We fundamentally believe that our integrated approach delivers a far superior customer experience than the fragmented approach" - this is when asked about Android competition again. He talked about fragmentation of App Stores, and fragmentation of operating system versions. "We think that our integrated approach is much better for the end user because it takes out all the complexity for the end user, instead of making the end user a systems integrator themselves."

Wondering why there isn't more about CEO Steve Jobs' medical leave of absence? None of the analysts asked, other than the indirect question about future product roadmaps.

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