Boom! Apple blows past expectations. One more thing: Future outlook conservative

While the recent Google and Yahoo quarterly financial results were largely based around more abstract ideas such as paid-clicks, the focus of Apple’s quarterly results were more concrete: computer sales. And boy did Apple sell a lot of computers. Simply put, this was Apple’s strongest second quarter ever.

Apple shipped over 2.2 million Macs in the quarter, representing 51 percent unit growth and 54 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. One reason for this is Apple’s retail stores, which are doing extremely well. On the conference call, Apple stated that 50 percent of the computers sold in the retail stores were sold to customers who had never owned a Mac before. If those numbers hold, the market share gains Apple has been seeing are certainly going to continue.

Overall revenue was up 43 percent from the previous year. Net quarterly profit was $1.05 billion on $1.16 earnings per share. All of these beat analysts expectations easily.

More numbers in Apple’s official release here.

Apple said that it remains confident that it will hit its stated goal of 10 million iPhones sold by the end of 2008. In terms of the SDK (software development kit) for the iPhone, Apple says that over 200,000 developers have already signed up and downloaded the kits. Of note is that one third of the Fortune 500 companies are said to be included in those downloading the software.

When asked about the 3G iPhone, Apple would only say that it does not comment on new products. The company did however acknowledge that unlocked iPhones were at least part of the sales for the device.

All of this is good news, so why is the stock dropping in after-hours trading, down over four percent? Well, Apple gave some comparatively weak expectations for next quarter. However, many analysts think Apple is setting the bar low on purpose so that it can continue to blow away numbers as it did today.

Apple remained silent on its purchase of chip maker PA Semi, which was revealed yesterday.

Even in a time of economic uncertainty in this country, Apple is continuing the shine. For what Steve Jobs’ (who wasn’t on the call) thoughts might be, watch the video below.