Apple sells 17.1 million iPhones, 11.1 million iPads in Q4

In a relatively rare occurrence, it looks like Apple has underperformed analysts’ expectations with its fourth quarter results. Apple is still doing quite well with its $28.27 billion in revenue and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion but its iPhone and iPad sales numbers weren’t as high as some predicted.

The company said it sold 17.07 iPhones in the quarter, which still represented a 21 percent increase year-over-year. Keep in mind that this figure did not include the more than four million units it sold in three days with the iPhone 4S. Analysts were expecting roughly 20 million units but it appears that demand may have tapered as some users waited for the iPhone 4S to be released but look for those numbers to skyrocket next quarter.

As for the iPad, it is the dominant tablet with 11.11 million units sold during the quarter and that’s far more than anything the competition is moving in the tablet space. This exceeded or equalled analyst expectations.

“We are thrilled with the very strong finish of an outstanding fiscal 2011, growing annual revenue to $108 billion and growing earnings to $26 billion,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a prepared statement. “Customer response to iPhone 4S has been fantastic, we have strong momentum going into the holiday season, and we remain really enthusiastic about our product pipeline.”

I only bring up the analysts so often because Apple is notorious for sending out a super low guidance and then it normally blows those away. While it still outperformed its guidance, it also generally outdoes the analysts’ expectations. Don’t let the Wall Street madness sway you though, as this was stil quite a good quarter for Apple and we’ll be listening in on the upcoming conference call for more details.

[Via Apple]