It's Official: Apple's Raking It In!

In the last quarter, Apple saw its highest revenue and earnings on record, outperforming even the most optimistic of Wall Street predictions.

The latest financial data from Cupertino is, once again, pretty incredible, as Apple announced its 'highest quarterly revenue and earnings ever.' 'We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,' said Tim Cook, who replaced Steve Jobs as Apple CEO last year.

Over the course of a year, the firm's revenue has grown 73% to $46.3 billion. Profits have more than doubled too, growing to $13.1 billion over the last three months of 2011 (the firm's first quarter of the 2012 fiscal year). These figures have once again smashed through analysts' predictions, which had estimated revenues in the region of $40 billion.

Almost $100 Billion in The Coffers

Over the last quarter, Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads (55 million units since launch). The firm's two flagship mobile devices have seen a big jump in unit sales over the last year, and revenues have followed suit, with +133% and +99% respectively. With Amazon's Kindle Fire now competing with the iPad in the US market, Apple refuses to see a digital tablet with a more limited range of functions than the iPad as any real rival.

Apple's computer sales grew in the last quarter too, up 26% with 5.2 million unit sales—that's 1.4 million iMacs and 3.7 million MacBooks.

Although Apple still claims to have a 70% share in the market for portable digital music players, iPod sales are continuing to fall with 15.4 million unit sales in the last quarter.

While announcing the latest financial results, Tim Cook also promised that Apple had 'some amazing new products in the pipeline.'

With almost $100 billion in the bank at the end of 2011, Apple's success seems to know no limits. With cash like this at its disposal, Apple has plenty to invest in R&D and new projects—let's just hope the new CEO can keep those 'amazing new products' coming.


> Buyer's Guides: Our Pick of The Best Products