What recession? Apple sees best non-holiday quarter ever

Not even a crumbling economy and the absence of co-founder and chief executive Steve Jobs can stop Apple. At least according to its second quarter earnings report, covering the period ending March 28, which beat analysts’ expectations — and then some.

Those analysts predicted that the Cupertino, Calif. company would report earnings of $1.08 per diluted share on $7.9 billion in revenue, according to a Thomson Reuters survey. Instead, Apple says it earned $1.33 per share on $8.16 billion, with a profit of $1.21 billion. That may fall short of the company’s $10.17 billion revenue in Q1, when sales were boosted by the holidays, but it’s up from the $7.51 billion the company brought in during the same period last year. In fact, these numbers even set some records for Apple, namely the best earnings and revenue for any non-holiday quarter.

To compare to another superstar tech company, in the most recent quarter Google actually dropped 6 percent year-over-year. Also, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) can make Apple’s performance look weaker, because they spread out the costs and revenue for subscription products (the iPhone and Apple TV) over 24 months. In non-GAAP numbers, Apple earned $9.06 billion in revenue and $1.66 billion in profits.

Some other numbers:

• Apple sold 2.22 million Macintosh computers, down 3 percent from a year ago.
• It sold 11.01 million iPods, up 3 percent.
• It sold 3.79 million iPhones, up 23 percent.

Apple is also forecasting revenue between $7.7 and $7.9 billion for the next quarter, with earnings per share between $0.95 and $1.00.