Apple Computer Posts Loss Of $708 Million

Apple Computer Inc. reported another huge quarterly loss on Wednesday - $708 million on a 27 percent decline in sales - as Chairman Gilbert Amelio struggles to turn the company around before hostile suitors try to seize control.

Amelio, telling reporters and stock analysts that the worst is over, said he expected the personal computer maker to regain profitability within the next six months as it benefited from a raft of new products and the cost savings achieved from axing more than 4,000 jobs.

The loss for the quarter ended March 28, slightly larger than expected by Wall Street, is just shy of the record $740 million loss a year earlier.

Particularly striking in Wednesday’s announcement was the revelation that shipments of Macintosh computers tumbled 33 percent from 892,000 a year earlier to 602,000 in the past three months.