Apple Nearly Doubles iPhone Sales, Profits

During the first three months of this year, Apple sold over 35.1 million iPhones. This isn't an all-time record, but it's an 88% increase over the same quarter a year ago. Sales of smartphones and other computers allowed the company to almost double its quarterly profit.

In the last quarter of 2011, Apple sold just over 37 million iPhones, but the company launched its latest handset during that period, after a year without a new model. In the first quarter of this year, 78% of all smartphones sold by AT&T were made by Apple, while 51% of Verizon's smartphones were iPhones.

Tablet sales were also strong: 11.8 million iPads were sold in Q1, a 151% unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 4 million Macs, a 7% unit increase, and it sold 7.7 million iPods, a 15% unit decline year-over-year, continuing a long trend in decreasing interest in stand-alone music players.

Revenue and Profit

The company's total revenue was $39.2 billion, leading to a quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion. In the same quarter a year ago, its revenue was $24.7 billion and net profit totaled $6.0 billion. Apple exceeded analysts' expectations, as they had predicted revenue of $36.8, and gloomy predictions from some analysts in the last week had driven Apple shares down 10%.

Looking ahead to the end of the current quarter, Apple executives are predicting revenue of about $34 billion.