Apple Q4 2012 earnings: $36 billion in revenue, $8.2 billion net profit

Just a day after introducing the iPad mini, a revised iMac, a 4th-generation iPad and a retooled Mac mini, the company is outing its Q4 2012 earnings -- and it looks as if it has narrowly fell short of Wall Street estimates. Revenue was pegged at $36 billion (compared to estimates of $35.08 billion), with net profit at $8.2 billion. For the sake of comparison, the outfit's fourth quarter of 2011 saw $28.27 billion in revenue alongside $6.62 billion net profit -- at the time, those comically large numbers were actually not up to Wall Street's comical expectations. If you're looking for a quarter-over-quarter comparison, the company's Q3 2012 report showed $35 billion in total revenue, with $8.8 billion in net profits.

The company is guiding for $52 billion in revenues for Q1 2013, while announcing that it sold 26.9 million iPhones (up from 17.01 million a year ago), 14 million iPads (up from 11.12 million) and 5 million Macs (up from 4.89 million) in this quarter. As for the waning iPod business? Predictably, it sold just 5.3 million of those, representing a 19 percent drop from the year-ago quarter. Naturally, the company is expecting its next earnings report to be the one that blows everyone away, with holiday sales -- combined with a slew of new kit -- to propel things leading into 2013. Apple also announced that shareholders that hold stock as of November 12th will pick up a $2.65 / share dividend.

As for other specifics, we're told that gross margin was 40.0 percent compared to 40.3 percent in the year-ago quarter, while international sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter's revenue. Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO, proudly boasted: "We're pleased to have generated over $41 billion in net income and over $50 billion in operating cash flow in fiscal 2012. Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2013, we expect revenue of about $52 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $11.75." As for the outfit's current stash of on-hand cash? $121.3 billion. Yeah. The financial results call will get going at 5PM ET, and we'll be liveblogging it right here!