Apple more than doubles profits in first fiscal quarter

Apple saw its highest earnings ever during its first fiscal quarter, more than doubling its profits year over year, the company said Tuesday. For the 14-week period ended December 31, 2011, Apple reported $46.33 billion in revenue, and a staggering $13 billion in profits. By comparison, the company earned $26.74 billion in revenue and $6 billion in profits during the same period in 2010. During the recent quarter, iPhone sales reached 37.04 billion units, up 128 percent from the 16.24 million sold years over year, while iPad sales reached 15.43 million units, up 111 percent from 7.33 million. This impressive growth spells good news for iOS app developers, as it indicates a rapidly-expanding install base for Apple's leading game-enabled platforms. Apple added that it sold 5.2 million Mac computers this quarter, up 26 percent from 4.13 million during this period last year. In fact, the only Apple products to see a decline this quarter were those in the iPod line -- which includes the iOS-enabled iPod Touch. Sales in this category fell to 15.4 million units, down 21 percent from 19.45 million year over year. The announcement of these latest figures pushed the price up by more than 7 percent in after hours trading to roughly $451 per share at press time. "We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter, said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. "Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion," he continued.