Apple’s 2011 fourth quarter financial results have been posted, and for the first time in a long time they have not met Wall Street expectations. Apple posted a $6.62 billion profit on $28.27 billion in revenue.  Compare this to one year ago, that’s up from a profit of $4.31 billion on $20.34 billion in revenue.

Here’s the break down by product category.  Apple sold 4.89 million Macs during the quarter (representing a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter); 17.07 million iPhones (representing a 21 percent unit growth); 11.12 million iPads (representing a 166 percent unit growth); and 6.62 million iPods (representing an 27 percent unit decline).

Why the low figures, especially in the iPhone department? Analysts are blaming the late introduction of the next iPhone (the iPhone 4S) and the fact that it wasn’t a totally redesigned iPhone 5. Though the numbers didn’t reach expectations, newly appointed CEO Tim Cook exuded optimism in a press release. “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. 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.” Apple did sell over four million iPhone 4S devices in just three days, so to say the product launch hurt the company would be downright false. Following the earnings announcement, Apple stock (which hit an all-time high of 422.24 today) fell 28.19 (-6.68%) after hours.

Looking ahead to the first quarter in 2012, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer expects revenue of about $37 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $9.30. Let’s see if they can get things back on track next time.

[Via Apple]