Apple earnings nearly double

Building on continued momentum of its iPod players, Apple Computer Inc. nearly doubled its net income on record revenue and easily topped Wall Street expectations.

For the three months ended Dec. 31, the maker of Macintosh computers and iPods said Wednesday it earned $565 million, or 65 cents per share, up from $295 million, or 35 cents a share in the year-ago quarter.

Apple revenues soared to $5.75 billion up from $3.49 billion a year ago.

Analysts on average expected earnings of 61 cents per share on sales of $5.47 billion, according to a Thomson Financial poll. The forecast included a non-cash, share-based compensation expense of 3 cents per share.

“We are thrilled to report the best quarter in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive. “We are working on more wonderful products for 2006, and I can’t wait to see what our customers think of them.”

Apple said it sold 14 million iPods during the holiday quarter — nearly three times as many units as in the same period a year ago. It shipped 1.25 million Mac computers in the quarter, up slightly from 1.05 million units a year ago. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has been working to cut its inventory ahead of new Mac computer products, including the first Apple machines with Intel chips, released last week.

Apple shares slumped 3.3 percent in late-session activity, down $2.71, after the report was released. Earlier, the stock fell 2.6 percent, or $2.22, to close at $82.49 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, dragged down by investor disappointment from lackluster results at Yahoo Inc. and missed expectations from Intel Corp.

•Online auctioneer eBay Inc. reported a 36 percent rise Wednesday in fourth-quarter profit, higher than most analysts expected, as revenue accelerated in the U.S. and Germany and for credit card shopping services.

Net income for the period ending Dec. 31 was $279.2 million, or 20 cents a share, compared with $205.4 million, or 15 cents a share, in the same quarter of 2004. Sales rose 42 percent to $1.33 billion, from $935.8 million.

Profit excluding acquisition costs and other expenses was $340.1 million, or 24 cents a share. That figure, which does not comply with generally accepted accounting principles, exceeded analyst expectations of 21 cents a share in a survey by Thomson Financial.

San Jose-based eBay left unchanged its forecast for profit and revenue in 2006. Profit excluding some costs will be from 96 cents to $1.01 per share, Rajiv Dutta, eBay’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. He forecast revenue to be from $5.7 billion to $5.9 billion. Both figures were unchanged from a forecast eBay provided in October.

Its shares fell 97 cents, or 2.1 percent, to close at $44.44 on the Nasdaq Stock Market before the earnings release. Its shares lost another $2.09, or 4.7 percent in after-hours trading.

•Advanced Micro Devices Inc. swung to a fourth-quarter profit Wednesday on record microprocessor sales and a larger slice of the market it appears to have swiped from its much larger rival, Intel Corp.

AMD shares rose nearly 7 percent in after-hours trading.

For the three months ended Dec. 25, AMD earned $95.6 million, or 21 cents per share, on sales of $1.84 billion. In the fourth quarter of 2004, it lost $30 million, or 8 cents per share, on sales of $1.26 billion.

•Washington Mutual Inc. reported Wednesday that its fourth-quarter earnings rose 12 percent, despite a slowdown in its home loan business. For the three months ended Dec. 31, net income at the nation’s largest savings and loan was $865 million, or 85 cents per share, up from $668 million, or 76 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2004.

That fell short of the consensus forecast of Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Financial, who predicted 90 cents per share. Estimates ranged from 79 to 95 cents a share.

Revenue, a combination of net interest income and noninterest income, was $3.75 billion, short of analysts’ prediction of $3.81 billion. Revenue for fourth-quarter 2004 was $3.29 billion.

Net income for the home loans group was $47 million in the latest quarter, down from $164 million a year ago. Total home loan volume was $50.43 billion in the most recent quarter, down slightly from $50.59 billion last year.