Understated Breathlessness

Back to Henry Blodget, and Apple’s Q1 earnings report conference call, where we learned that the company’s year-over-year revenue grew by 71%:

Companies Apple’s size just don’t grow 70% year over year. In fact, we would not be surprised if this were the first time in history that a company this big grew this fast (if you find another example, please let us know).

Apple is now on a revenue run-rate of more than $100 billion a year. Just as amazing, it is expecting to grow another 60%+ in the first quarter of this year. This is, in a word, staggering.

The closest thing to a downer in the report was that iPod sales shrank 7% compared to a year ago. However, when you consider that every iPhone (16.2 million sold in Q1) and every iPad (7.3 million sold in Q1) is also an iPod, I think you’ll find that iPod+iTunes market penetration is just fine.