Apple announced another impressive quarter, with its net profit almost doubling off the back of strong sales across most of its activities. The period also saw the introduction of the vendor’s iPad 2, with COO Tim Cook (pictured), noting that it had “sold everyone of them that we could make.” For the three months to 26 March 2011, the company posted a net profit of US$5.99 billion, up 95.1 percent year-on-year, on revenue of US$24.67 billion, up 82.7 percent. Revenue attributed to the iPhone line (including services and accessories) was US$12.3 billion, up 126 percent year-on-year, while revenue from the iPad was US$2.83 billion – this device was not available in the first quarter of last year.

During the period, Apple sold 18.65 million iPhones, representing a growth of 113 percent year-on-year. It also sold 4.69 million iPads, declining to break-out how this was split between the first and second versions of the tablet. Cook observed: “I wish we could have produced a lot more iPad 2s because there were certainly a lot of people waiting for them.” The company noted two areas where sales of the iPhone were “off the chart.” The US grew by 155 percent year-on-year, thanks to the launch of the CDMA version by Verizon Wireless but with existing supplier AT&T also doing “extremely well” during the period. And in Greater China, iPhone sales were up by “almost 250 percent.”

With regard to the iPad 2, the company is set to ship to an additional 13 countries from next week, joining the 25 added at the end of March, with more set to be added through the quarter. Tim Cook noted that “I am confident we’re going to produce a very large number for the quarter. Whether that will be enough to meet demand, I don’t know. Demand has been staggering.”

While Apple did not comment on its plans for adding LTE support to its products, it reiterated its earlier argument that “the first generation of LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those, we are just not willing to make.”

In a conference call, Cook addressed concerns that the Japanese disaster would impact Apple’s supply chain, noting that: “we did not have any supply or cost impact in our fiscal Q2 as a result of the tragedy, and we currently do not anticipate any material supply or cost impact in our fiscal Q3.” The possibility of longer-term disruptions will be discussed in its next conference call.

Cook also made a reference to Apple’s recently announced legal action against Samsung, particularly with regard to the fact that Samsung is a large component supplier to Apple. He said that “we are Samsung’s largest customer and Samsung is a very valued component supplier to us, and I expect the strong relationship will continue. Separately from this, we felt the Mobile Communication division of Samsung had crossed the line. And after trying for some time to work the issue, we decided we needed to rely on the courts.”