Update: Apple shifts record 22.1 million iPods in Q4

San Francisco (CA) - Apple hit a record 22 million iPod sales during the final quarter of 2007, along with over 2.3 million Mac computers to bring a total profit during the quarter of $1.58 billion.

The company continues to deliver stunning financial results, which however was not enough today to prevent a substantial after hour decline of the company’s stock. Chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer noted that the company expects a 29% sequential decrease in revenues for Q1, which prompted investors to unload Apple shares late Tuesday. At the time of this writing, shares were trading down about 11% or $17.17 at $138.47. The stock closed Tuesday trading at $155.64, down $5.72 or 3.54% from Monday.

Oppenheimer’s comment overshadowed an overall Q4 performance many companies can dream of. Revenues were up 35% to 9.6 billion and Earnings were up 58% to 1.58 billion. Looking a bit closer at the revenue source, Apple appears to have a solid base : 47% of revenues come from Mac systems : Apple sold 2.3 million units during Q4, up 44% from a year earlier. iMacs saw their unit sales grow by 53%, notebooks by 33%, according to Oppenheimer. The company made about $170 million from sales of the new operating system Leopard.

The iPod remains the main pillar of Apple’s business : More than 22.1 million were sold during Q4 and the iPod Touch, which, together with the iPhone, is considered to be the benchmark for upcoming Mobile Internet Devices, lifted the average selling price of the iPod family to now $181. The iPhone sold 2.3 million units during the quarter, bringing in $241 million for Apple, including carrier payments and revenue from iPhone accessories.

204 Apple stores contributed sales of $1.7 billion, averaging about $8.5 million of sales from every store. Oppenheimer said that 504,000 Macs were sold through these retail locations, which saw a total of 38.4 million visitors during the quarter.