Apple last night reported record quarterly revenue and earnings and also used the opportunity to strengthen industry speculation it will soon launch the iPhone 5. Sales for its fiscal 2011 third quarter, ended June 25, 2011, increased 82 percent year-on-year to US$28.57 billion and profit was up 125 percent to US$7.31 billion. Both sales and profit exceeded analyst expectations and as a result shares of Apple rose more than 5 percent to US$397.20 in after-hours trading in New York. The company sold 20.34 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 142 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. 

Sales of the iPhone mean that Apple will almost certainly have passed the formerly dominant Nokia and will be battling Samsung for the title of the world’s largest smartphone vendor. Nokia is expected to report a loss for the quarter when it reports tomorrow. And Carolina Milanesi, analyst at Gartner, believes that Apple could overtake LG by the next quarter and become the third largest mobile phone vendor worldwide.

iPad sales hit 9.25 million during the period, a 183 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The vendor said its record sales had been led by the iPad 2 and growing demand for its products in newer markets, such as China (sales were up more than sixfold year-on-year in China and Taiwan, reaching US$3.8 billion). Indeed, international sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s total revenue. “Sales of iPad have absolutely been a frenzy for people to get one,” noted COO Tim Cook on a conference call. “We were selling every unit we could make. As we stepped into July, we have been able to increase supply further and some [models] in some countries are at a supply-demand balance.” Cook also fired a shot at rivals in the tablet market: “It doesn’t appear that other tablets are getting any traction to speak of,” he said on a conference call in response to a question about Android and competition. 

Meanwhile CFO Peter Oppenheimer added fuel to the fire of speculation the firm will announce a new version of its iconic iPhone in the next few weeks. “We … have a future product transition that we’re not going to talk about today and [this] will impact our September quarter,” said Oppenheimer. However, Apple also typically unveils a new laptop computer lineup in the autumn.and Openheimer’s comments could have been a reference to that.

For the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, the outlook was a bit conservative, even by Apple’s standards. Predicted revenue of US$25 billion for the September quarter would represent a 12 percent sequential decline. However, Apple has a history of under-promising and over-delivering.