Apple this afternoon reported a second-quarter profit of US$40 million, or 11 cents per share, on revenues of $1.5 billion. Analysts had been expecting Apple to post a profit of 10 cents per share. Apple’s earnings were down a penny per share from the year-ago quarter, while revenues were up 4 percent. Apple shipped 813,000 Macs during the quarter, including 220,000 flat-panel iMacs. The company also announced that it plans to open another 20 retail stores this year and closed the quarter with $4.3 billion in cash. Apple expects revenues to increase slightly in the third-quarter to $1.6 billion. “We’re pleased to have delivered solid results while executing a challenging product transition,” Fred Anderson, Apple’s CFO, said in a statement. Apple’s conference call dicussing its second-quarter earnings begins at 17:30 ET. MacMinute will be delivering live coverage of the call, which will also be webcast.