A few hours ago Apple released its Q1 2012 financial results and it saw Apple post its biggest quarter ever with revenue of $46.33 billion and see record sales of its Mac, iPhone and iPad product lines. We covered all the results in our Q1 2012 Results article earlier today so be sure to head over there if you haven’t already – it also includes a number of graphs that demonstrates Apple’s performance over the past 12 quarters and it paints a fascinating picture.

However, the earnings call itself is an interesting one hour, with Tim Cook (CEO) and Peter Oppenheimer (CFO) also answering a number of questions from select investors and analysts. In this Q&A section, a number of details are revealed – including additional statistics. We’ve re-listened to the call and have compiled the following post that highlights the more interesting aspects of this Q&A section and it is all below the break.

Further Reading:

MacStories: Apple Q1 2012 Results

MacStories: “Our Next Big Insight”

MacStories: More iPhones Than Babies Born Every Day

Apple’s Q1 FY12 Earnings Press Release

Audio Webcast of the Earnings Call

SeekingAlpha: Transcript of the Earnings Call

ReadWriteWeb: Apple’s Growth Rate Is Simply Incredible… And It’s Accelerating

Macworld: This is Tim: Apple’s CEO in his own words

(more…)

Philip Elmer-Dewitt reports on analysts’ expectations for iPhone sales in Apple’s first financial quarter of 2012 (which ended last week):

The numbers from the 22 Wall Street analysts who have responded so far to our call for estimates range from a high of 35 million iPhones from BTIG’s Walter Piecyk to a low of 25.2 million from Gabelli’s Hendi Susanto. The average among this group is 29.74 million, which would represent a year-over-year increase of 83%.

The average among our panel of 15 independents — an assortment of bloggers, enthusiasts and individual investors — is 33.42 million iPhones, or an annual increase of nearly 106%. Among this group, the estimates range from a high of 35.75 million from Posts at Eventide’s Robert Paul Leitao to a low of 30.17 million from Alexis Cabot of the MacObserver’s Apple Finance Board.

To put these predictions in context, here’s how Apple performed in its previous Q1s:

• Q1 2008: 2.315 million units
• Q1 2009: 4.363 million units
• Q1 2010: 8.7 million units
• Q1 2011: 16.24 million units

And here’s a graph showing every iPhone quarter to date:

Predictions for Q1 2012 (results will be announced on January 24) now range between 25.2 million and 35.75 million iPhones sold. Either way, it’s going to be a “blow-out quarter” for iPhone sales — even if we consider Apple’s Q3 2011, the biggest ever for iPhone sales to date with 20.34 million units sold.

It’ll be interesting to observe how Asia-Pacific will perform in relation to iPhone sales, too, as Apple reported overall sales more than doubled in Q4 2011. As for Q1 2012 itself, Apple CEO Tim Cook said they were confident to have enough 4S supply to go through the holiday season, and also confirmed the company was expecting record iPhone sales for the quarter with revenue guidance set at $37 billion (Asymco’s Horace Dediu, however, expects revenue to hit $44 billion).

Apple refreshed their Investor Relations page last night, updating with a placeholder that will direct investors (and listeners like us) to the upcoming conference call. For the first fiscal quarter in 2012, Apple has announced that that they will announce results on January 24.

Apple’s conference call webcast discussing Q1 – 2012 financial results will begin at 2:00pm PT/5:00pm ET on Tuesday, January 24, 2012.

In Q4 2011, Apple posted $28.27 billion in revenue with 17.07 million iPhones, 11.12 million iPads, and 4.89 million Macs sold. The company posted quarterly record-breaking revenue of  $28.27 billion and record quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share. Apple had their best iPad quarter to date, selling over 11 million units at a 166% increase over the year-ago quarter. The iPhone grew 21% over the year-ago quarter, while iPod sales were down 27 percent from the year-ago quarter. Apple also saw considerable progress in China, posting $4.5 billion in revenue for the September quarter. As of the fourth quarter, Apple has $81.6 billion in cash available.

During the Q4 2011 conference call, Tim Cook was confident that Apple would have a large supply of the iPhone 4S in the holiday quarter and expected to set an all-time record for the iPhone in the first quarter of 2012. Apple estimates they’ll post $37 billion in revenue and diluted earnings per share of around $9.30 for this quarter.

Asymco’s Horace Diedu estimates that Apple will report earnings of $12.3 on revenues of $44.6 billion, with the street price aiming at $9.75 EPS on $37.99 billion. Diedu expects a 120% year over year growth in iPhone sales, with predicted units sold at 35.7 million. Without a new iPod lineup, iPods sales expected to fall thirty percent from the year-ago quarter, with expected sales at 13.6 million units. iPads and Mac sales will continue to do well, exceeding the year-ago quarter with 100% (14.7 million units sold) and 27% (5.2 million units sold) growth respectively.

Reuters reported that Susquehanna has raised its price target on Apple’s stock and raised their iPhone shipment estimate to 30.3 million iPhones in the first quarter from it’s earlier forecast of 27.1 million units.

On October 17th, Apple announced that it had sold 4 million iPhones on its opening weekend, with 25 million users already using iOS 5. Phil Schiller said it was Apple’s most successful launch yet, doubling the sales of the iPhone 4 sold in three days last year. AT&T broke their record for first-day iPhone sales with 200,000 pre-orders, with Verizon Wireless and Sprint also seeing incredible demand.

We will provide live updates from the call on our site’s homepage on January 24 starting at 2 PM PST.