iPod sales climb 17%, Macs up 34%

Apple released its Q4 data yesterday, revealing $6.2 billion in sales and $904 million in profit.  Gross margin jumped from 29.2 to 33.6.  And rolling into the holidays, Apple has to be pleased with it’s line up.

A thumbnail of what happened:

•  2,164,000 Macintosh® computers, up 34%  (exceeds old record by 400,000)
•  10,200,000 iPods during the quarter, up 17%
•   1,119,000 iPhone™

I find myself asking what is the driver here for Mac sales?  Is it iPods infiltrating our lives and making Apple an acceptable player in the market.  Is it “hi, I am a Mac” advertising purporting the Mac to be oh-so-much cooler than a PC?  If you figure we’re all waiting for the new OS to drop, it is not the geeks driving the 34% increase.  What do you think?

If you yearn for more fiscal intel, catch the conference call replay at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq407/ .

Read [Think Secret] Press Release [Apple]