Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) reported profits of $6 billion for the first quarter today along with record revenue of $26.74 billion, both of which beat analysts’ expectations. The results are a substantial gain over the same quarter a year ago when Apple reported revenue of $15.68 billion and a quarterly profit of $3.38 billion.
“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, said in a statement. “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 COO Tim Cook, who will be running day-to-day operations during Jobs’ absence, joined CFO Peter Oppenheimer in answering analyst’s questions during a conference call with analysts following the release of earnings.
Cook touted strong sales of Apple’s iPad and iPhone and the continued growth of Macintosh computers that he said far outstripped the growth of the PC industry as a whole.
Datamation has the details on what else was mentioned on the earnings call, including what Cook described as a key investment Apple made in recent quarters to secure supply of an important technology. Cook said Apple made a similar move back in 2005 when it spent over a billion dollars to ensure it would have an adequate supply of flash memory. “That was a fantastic use of Apple’s cash,” he said.