By Martin Vedris

CALIFORNIA: Apple released its results for the fiscal 2008 second quarter ended March 29, 2008, with gross margin down despite 44 per cent of revenue coming from international sales.

The number’s up for Apple because even though gross margin dropped 2.2 per cent to 32.9 per cent, the company posted revenue of US$7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of US$1.05 billion.

This compares to revenue of US$5.26 billion and net quarterly profit of US$770 million, in the same quarter last year.

Apple announced that it shipped 2,289,000 Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing 51 per cent unit growth and 54 per cent revenue growth over the same quarter last year.

The company sold 10,644,000 iPods during the quarter, representing one per cent unit growth and eight per cent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone sales were 1,703,000.

The news of the financial results was followed by a promise by Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, that there will be some new products coming soon from Apple.

“We’re delighted to report 43 percent revenue growth and the strongest March quarter revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said Jobs. “With over $17 billion in revenue for the first half of our fiscal year, we have strong momentum to launch some terrific new products in the coming quarters.”