Apple posts record $6bn profit

Apple’s quarterly profit reached $6bn in the three months ending December 25th – a year-on-year rise of 77 per cent.

The record profit was backed by record revenue of $26.74bn – up from $15.68bn made in the same period the year prior.

Apple sold almost 50m products during the quarter. This comprised of 4.13m Macs, 16.24m iPhones, 19.45m iPods, and 7.33m iPads.

We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs.

We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer added: We couldn’t be happier with the performance of our business, generating $9.8bn billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter.

Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $22 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.90.”