Apple Inc. has posted record June profit and revenue, thanks to record Mac sales, steady iPod demand and successful launch of the iPhone.

The company posted profit of $818 million or $92 cents per share (up from $472 million last year), a 73% increase, and revenue of $5.41 billion (up from $4.37 billion last year).

1.76 million Macs have been sold this quarter, or more than ever in Apple's history and up 33% year over year. iPod sales kept steady to 9.8 million (up 21% y-o-y) while the company reassured investors on the iPhone launch by announcing it has sold more than 270 000 phones during the first 30 hours after its release, on June 29.

The Mac business which saw a significant surge represented 60% of the quarterly revenue while the Music business represented 40%. The iPhone business still remains insignificant at 5 million of revenue for this quarter because it was available only during the two last days of the quarter and is calculated on a 24 month subscription basis.

"We're thrilled to report the highest June quarter revenue and profit in Apple's history, along with the highest quarterly Mac sales ever", Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs told to investors during the conference call. The company is now expecting to sell its first million of iPhones during the current quarter. A number that they achieved only after nearly two years with the iPod.

Gross margin was at 36.9% up from 35.1% sequentially and 30.3% for the year ago quarter.

Analysts were expecting Apple to earn 72 cents per share on revenue of about $5.2 to $5.3 billion while guidance for Q4 (or calendar Q3) is set to $65 cents per share on $5.7 billion of revenue. But these numbers sound conservative, considering analysts are expecting $83 cents per share on $6 billion of revenue.

Investors seem to be reassured and impressed with Apple's quarterly results as the company's shares -which were up about 2% to $137 during the regular session- now skyrocket to historic highs of over $150 or more than 9% up during the after hours trading session which follows the financials conference call.

Yesterday's announcement by AT&T of 146 000 iPhone activation during the first two days after its launch sent the stock down more than 6%. It now appears that, because of some technical issues on AT&T's iPhone activation procedure, more than 120 000 customers had to wait until early July to activate their Apple branded phone and, as a result were not counted in AT&T's financial results for last quarter.

In the interest of full disclosure, we inform you that the author of this article holds a small share in AAPL stock since 2001 that was not an influence in the creation and the publication of this article.