Apple posts biggest quarterly profit of all time

iPhone and Mac sales enjoy record revenue

Apple has posted the biggest quarterly profit ever posted by a public company after iPhone and Mac sales soared over Christmas.

Quarterly revenue reached $74.6bn and net profit hit the $18bn for fiscal Q1 2015, which ended 27 December 2014. According the Standard and Poor's, the profit figure is the biggest ever posted by a public company, the BBC reports.

Apple said the results were fueled by "all-time record revenue" from iPhone and Mac sales, alongside record performance of the App Store.

iPhone unit sales also set a new record, Apple said, after it shifted a whopping 74.5 million units during the quarter.

The results are an almost 30 per cent rise on the same quarter last year, which saw revenue of $57.6bn and net profit of $13.1bn.

Apple said that international sales accounted for 65 per cent of Q1's revenue, which is no surprise given that just this morning Apple was announced as the leader for smartphone shipments in China in Q4 2014.

"We'd like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high," Apple CEO Tim Cook said. "Our revenue grew 30 per cent over last year to $74.6bn, and the execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal."

Luca Maestri, Apple's CFO, said that in Q2 2015 the firm expects to see revenue between $52bn and $55bn, operating expenses between $5.4bn and $5.5bn and gross margin between 38.5 per cent and 39.5 per cent."