The highlight of the report was the 1,610,000  million Macs sold during the quarter.  The Mac unit sales blew away Wall Street and Analyst expectations and checked in as the best Mac unit shipments in any quarter in Apple's history.  The 1.61 million Macs accounted for 58 percent of total revenue in the quarter.  Prior to the report, consensus estimates expected Apple to ship a total of 1.47 million Macintosh (Mac) computers during the quarter.

Key Metrics from the Quarter:

Taking the fourth quarter numbers into account, Apple sold 5,303,000 Macintosh computers (best ever in a year) during the fiscal year up from the 4,534,000 sold in fiscal year 2005.  That's a 17 percent increase year over year.  Here's a look at Apple's Macintosh Sales for Fiscal Year 2006

Quotes from Apple Executives:
Apple's CEO Steve Jobs stated the following: 

Commentary and Opinion:
Q4 2006 marked the eight straight quarter in which Apple shipped at least 1 million Macs, a trend that started in Q1 2005.  The following is a view of Macintosh sales over that period.  It's clear that the trend is upward and that sales are picking up momentum.

In my October 10, 2006 preview I predicted that Apple would ship 1,640,000 Macs during the quarter.  My rationale used data from prior quarters, Mac model releases during fiscal 2006, and events that transpired during the fourth quarter.  I missed the number by only 30,000 units.  I slightly over estimated Portable units by 14,000 units and desktops by 16,000 units.  Although my prediction was above the actual numbers, I gave a more accurate prediction than Wall Street Analysts, who had consensus estimate of only 1.47 million.  In my post yesterday, I discussed how some analysts raised their projections over the past few weeks but still, they were way off the mark.

Apple's Press Release can be found here.