Apple reported the most profitable financial quarter in their history yesterday, showing a 50% increase in profits thanks in large to a successful festive shopping season. 

The results were for the company's fiscal first quarter of 2010, which ended on 26 December 2009. The revenue for that period was $15.68 billion (around R120 billion), with a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion (approx. R25.8 billion). The results for the same period last year included revenue of $11.88 billion (almost R90.84 billion) and a net quarterly profit of $2.26 billion (about R17.28 billion).

Most of the revenues were due to sales of Apple products on the international market, contributing a whopping 58% to this quarter’s revenue. The Californian IT giant sold 3.36 million Mac computers during the quarter, which boils down to a 33% unit increase over the same period last year. Also sold was 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter, an incredible 100% growth over the same period last year, and 21 million iPods, which bucks the trend at an 8% unit decline from a year ago.

“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO and co-founder. “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." Is Jobs referring to the mythical Tablet? We will have to wait till tomorrow to find out.