US Economy: Apple Shares Drop in Unofficial Trading

Nervous investors dumped shares in Apple last night on concerns over weakening profit margins and persistent rumors about the health of the technology company's founder, Steve Jobs.

Apple's quarterly profits soared by 31% to $1.07bn as customers snapped up record numbers of Mac computers, iPods and iPhones.

But the Californian company provided cautious guidance to Wall Street on its prospects for the rest of the year and offered little comfort on speculation surrounding Jobs, whose gaunt appearance surprised onlookers at a recent industry conference.

When asked about Jobs' health during a call with analysts last night, Apple's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer would only say: "Steve loves Apple. He serves as CEO at the pleasure of Apple's board and has no plans to leave Apple. Steve's health is a private matter."

In unofficial trading after the close of the stockmarket, Apple's shares slumped by 11% to $148.

Jobs, 53, is considered to be the driving force behind the company's consistent innovation. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer five years ago but subsequently recovered.

There has been widespread comment in the US media and in the blogosphere over Jobs' apparent substantial weight loss when he took the stage at an annual developers' conference last month. At the time, Apple said he was taking antibiotics for a minor "bug".

The New York Post revived the issue yesterday by quoting a series of unnamed industry and financial sources expressing concern over his condition.Investors have long been worried about a lack of an obvious succession plan at Apple.

The issue arose last year when Jobs' position was briefly threatened by a scandal over improper pricing of executive share options.

Questions about the entrepreneur proved a distraction from second-quarter figures which revealed that Mac sales had rocketed 41% year-on-year to 2.5m computers and iPod sales were up by 12% to 11m globally.

Apple sold 717,000 of its touch-screen iPhones during the three months to June. But the company said margins were likely to weaken because of a series of factors including a "back to school" promotion and an unspecified product launch which is being kept strictly under wraps.

The technology company opened 16 new Apple stores during the period and this week opened its first outlet in Beijing.