The Apple computer electronics, software, and iPod company has maintained its 'must have' status with consumers over the Christmas period posting the best financial results period ever for its fiscal 2010 first quarter ended December

26, 2009 with revenues of $15.68bn and a net quarterly profit of $3.38bn.

The company sold 3.36m Macintosh computers during the quarter (+33%); 8.7m iPhones (+100%); and 21m iPods during the quarter, representing an 8% unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Apple's gross margin was 40.9%, up from 37.9% in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58% of the quarter's revenue.

‘If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it's surprising that Apple is now a $50bn-plus company,’ said Steve Jobs, Apple's Ceo. ‘The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we're really excited about.’

Looking forward, Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO said: ‘We are very pleased to have generated $5.8bn in cash during the quarter. Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $11bn to $11.4bn and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $2.06 to $2.18.’