Apple doubles iPhone sales in a year

Sales of the iPhone have doubled since this time last year, Apple’s latest financial reports show.

The company’s Q4 earnings reveal that the company sold 8.7 million iPhones, double the number sold in the last quarter of 2008.

Mac sales also showed healthy growth, rising by a third year-on-year with unit sales of 3.36 million.

The only chink in Apple’s armour came with iPod sales falling by 8% year-on-year, although given that the iPhone doubles as an iPod, Apple is in some respects robbing Peter to pay Paul.

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

The impressive sales led to record-breaking revenue of $15.68 billion, and a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion. That’s a vast improvement on the $11.88 billion revenue and $2.26 billion profit posted in Q4 2008.

Despite the healthy figures, Apple’s share price only registered a minor climb, with many analysts predicting even more aggressive growth for the iPhone before the results were announced.

“Mac sales were very strong, which more than offset what might be perceived as a ho-hum iPhone number,” Bill Kreher, an analyst with Edward Jones told Reuters. “Maybe some on the Street were getting a little euphoric with their expectations on the iPhone.”

Apple CEO Steve Jobs claims the results are a good start to a week in which the company is almost certain to unveil its tablet device. “If you annualise our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” Jobs says. “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.”

The Apple figures don’t reveal how much revenue Apple earned from its burgeoning iPhone App Store. Combined figures announced last week suggest that Apple has in excess of 99% of the mobile app market, which could potentially be worth more than $1 billion a year to the company.