On Wednesday, Apple reported a profit of $38 million, compared to a loss of $195 million the same quarter the previous year. Although revenues were slightly less than expected, Apple’s profit was in line with analysts expectations, and Wall Street reacted positively to the news. During his quarterly conference call, Apple CFO Fred Anderson highlighted other results of the past quarter, some of which are quite surprising.
Laptop sales were strong as Apple moved 116,000 units in the past quarter. The same could not be said, however, for the Apple-branded line of women’s underwear. “We really didn’t get the word out on these,” Anderson said. “So it’s not surprising they didn’t catch on. Now we’re stuck with 50,000 brassieres and, sure, they feel great, but what am I going to do with 50,000 of them?”
In a similar vein, Apple was forced to take a charge after discovering one of the plants responsible for manufacturing the discontinued G4 Cube was still churning them out on Apple’s behalf. “It was an oversight,” Anderson admitted. “There was a memo, but they say they never got it. That was after they said there wasn’t anyone there who spoke English, so something weird is going on there.”
Rather than sell the Cubes and risk cannibalizing sales of other Macs, Apple will donate them to the San Jose Zoo’s Primate Language Research Center, allowing the company to write off the expense. When Center Director Alison Mayer heard of the donation of the 75,152 Macs, her reaction was one of shock. “Shit,” she said looking around at the Center’s half dozen cages and their primate residents. “We’re gonna need a mess more chimps. I wish someone had asked me first. I’m not even sure there are that many chimps.”
On the positive side, Apple scored a major success by making “the largest educational order ever” to the state of Maine for 36,000 iBooks. Maine educators cited the iBook’s portability, competitive software bundle and price/performance ratio as its advantages over competing products from Dell. Maine students, on the other hand, stressed the iBook’s ability to wirelessly download porn and the fact that it didn’t look “so goddamn girly like the last iBook did”.
Perhaps the most shocking revelation came near the end of the call, when Anderson said one of Apple’s more profitable businesses for the quarter was the selling of human organs to an alien race know as the Klathu. “Now, I know some squeamish types will have a problem with this,” Anderson acknowleged. “But the fact is, there are plenty of organs we don’t even need and will never use. The spleen, for instance. Does anyone know what it does?”
None of the Wall Street analysts were willing to respond. “I rest my case,” Anderson said.
A few analysts did question the morality of Apple’s new profit center. Daniel Niles of Lehman Brothers asked what the Klathu do with the organs they buy from Apple. Anderson responded simply “Well, they eat them, of course.” Most analysts’ questions, however, centered around what kind of margins Apple was able to obtain on the organs and how much inventory was currently in the channel.
The Market was apparently unfazed by the moral implications of the new organ business as several firms raised their rating on Apple and Apple’s stock closed up on the week.