“We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a press release. “iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”

Apple said it sold 3.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 27-percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter; 14.1 million iPhones, representing 91-percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter; and 4.19 million iPads during the quarter (with no year-ago quarter to compare it with, given its April launch.)

Not surprisingly, the iPod music player (which does not include the iPod Touch) is seeing shrinkage with 9.05 million units sold, an 11-percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

In a rare appearance, Jobs joined the conference call to discuss Apple’s competitors, namely Google. Responding to Google’s characterization of the iPhone as a closed platform, Jobs said Android’s “open” approach was “fragmented,” because Android-powered smartphones ship with different versions of the OS. That results in a confusing experience for both buyers and developers, he said.

“In reality the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try to hide the real issue of what’s best for the customer: fragmented versus integrated?” Jobs said. “We see tremendous value in having Apple rather than users be the systems integrator. We think this is a huge strength in our approach versus Google’s.”

See Also:

• ‘New Creation’ Launch + Earnings = Big Week For Apple
• Apple Sells 5.2 Million iPhones During Record-Setting Third …
• Apple Posts Record Profits, Sales for Holiday Quarter

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Authors: Brian X. Chen

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