Apple doubles profit on solid iPhone sales

Washington, April 25 (IANS) Proving the sceptics wrong again, Apple nearly doubled its profit last quarter thanks to much stronger-than-expected iPhone sales to raise the cash hoard of world's most valuable company to an astounding $110.2 billion.

Apple said Tuesday it sold 35.1 million iPhones during the first three months of 2012, soundly beating analysts' expectations. That was a relief to investors, following weaker-than-expected iPhone activations from Verizon and AT&T during the quarter.

Shares of Apple rose more than 7 percent after hours, halting a two-week slump that has dragged the stock down nearly 13 percent from its all-time peak, CNN reported.

The iPhone 4S got a big boost from overseas sales in the past quarter, particularly after the device launched on China Unicom in January and China Telecom in March. Apple's Asian revenues grew 32 percent over the prior quarter.

Apple also announced that it sold 11.8 million iPads. Boosting sales was the launch of the third generation of the tablet, which went on sale in mid-March, as well as Apple's decision to continue selling the very similar iPad 2 at a $100 discount.

The iPad is now Apple's fastest-selling device, reaching 67 million sold since it launched two years ago. It took Apple three years to sell as many iPhones, five years to sell as many iPods and 24 years to sell that number of Macintosh computers.

Mac sales grew to 4 million, and iPod sales slipped to 7.7 million.

Overall, sales for the Cupertino, California-based company rose 59 percent to $39.2 billion. Apple's net income rose to $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per share, up 95 percent from a year earlier.