All Things Digital

Try as they might, financial analysts attending Apple’s (AAPL) Q2 earnings call yesterday were unable to goad company execs into giving up a launch date for the 3G iPhone. Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, and Tim Cook, the company’s COO, refused to confirm rumors that the company plans to announce the device this summer, though they did–as they always do–claim Apple has a number of exciting products in the pipeline.

And that was confirmation enough for analysts. Citigroup’s (C) Richard Gardner promptly issued a research note pitching June 9, the kickoff of the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, as the likely date of the 3G iPhones’ debut. Wrote Gardner, “We expect a steady stream of new products beginning on 9 June with a 3G iPhone and iPhone/iPod touch SDK, continuing with a refresh of the complete laptop line in July/August and concluding with a complete refresh of the iPod line in August/September.”

June 9 seems a plausible, if not bleedingly obvious launch date. Announce the 3G iPhone at WWDC, with an eye toward an official release on June 29, the first anniversary of its predecessor’s debut? That gives Apple plenty of time to reach its goal of shipping 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. The company has so far sold 1.7 million iPhones worldwide, leaving 8.3 million more to go if it wants to hit the 10 million mark. Uncrating the 3G version of the device in early summer, perhaps in concert with a move into the massive Japanese and Chinese markets, would make reaching 10 million iPhones shipped an easy matter.

If there’s been a slowdown in U.S. consumer spending, nobody told Apple. This afternoon, the company reported second-quarter revenue of $7.5 billion on net income of $1.1 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share, pretty much blowing the doors off Wall Street expectations.

Apple (AAPL) shipped 2,289,000 Macs (up 51%), 10,644,000 iPods (up 1%) and 1,703,000 iPhones during the quarter.

“We’re delighted to report … the strongest March quarter revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said CEO Steve Jobs, recycling the soundbyte CFO Peter Oppenheimer used to describe the company’s 2007 March quarter.

Clearly, business is good in Cupertino. That said, Apple says it expects fiscal third-quarter earnings of $1 a share on revenue of $7.2 billion–a bit below analyst expectations. And the Street, which by now should be familiar with Apple’s under-promise-and-over-deliver earnings highjinks, isn’t at all happy with that forecast. The company’s shares slipped a bit in after-hours trading.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs no longer need reserve his use of the exclamatory “boom” to product demos; It would be an equally effective interjection for company earnings announcements, which have lately been remarkably strong. After market close today, Apple said that profits surged 67% in its fiscal fourth quarter–a period during which it sold more than 1 million iPhones, 10 million iPods, and a record 2 million Mac computers. The results blew the doors off Wall Street’s expectations, and spiked Apple shares some 7% in after-hours trading.

It was a very strong quarter. So strong, in fact, that Apple, which has traditionally been extremely cautious with its forward-looking guidance, is predicting more of the same for the holidays. Looking forward, the company forecast that it would earn $1.42 a share on $9.2 billion in sales in the Christmas quarter.

” … We are very confident in our strategy and the team here at Apple has been working incredibly hard for a number of years and things are just really coming together quite well for us and I couldn’t be happier,” Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer explained during a conference call to discuss the company’s earnings. “Apple is shipping the best products that we have ever made in our history. We just eclipsed the record that we set for Mac sales last quarter by 400,000. iPod sales accelerated after the transition and we’ll be shipping the best iPods that we’ve ever made, and the iPhone is doing really, really well. So we’re quite confident in the business and we’ve exited the September quarter with a lot of momentum.”