SAN JOSE, Calif. — Apple Inc. reported Tuesday (April 20) results of its last three months, its best non-holiday quarter to date. The Company posted revenue of $13.50 billion and net profit of $3.07 billion compared to revenue of $9.08 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.62 billion in the same period last year when it fared relatively well despite a global recession.

Apple was cautious on its outlook for the next three months. "Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $13.0 billion to $13.4 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $2.28 to $2.39," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO.

Apple sold 8.75 million iPhones in the quarter, up 131 percent over the same quarter last year, driven in part by adding new carriers and new countries. It sold 2.94 million Macintosh computers, up 33 percent, and 10.9 million iPod units down one percent.

The iPhone sales represented an all time high for the company with growth far above the industry average of 41 percent reported by International Data Corp. Apple added at least eight new carriers including Vodaphone in the U.K. and several in Asia, bringing its total to 151 carriers in 88 countries.

Apple took in about $5.54 billion in iPhone revenue, indicating an average selling price of about $600 for the handset.

International sales accounted for 58 percent of Apple's quarterly revenue. Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook revealed the company posted revenues of $1.3 billion in Greater China in the last six months, up about 200 percent from the same period a year ago.

About half the 40 to 50 new Apple retail shops the company plans to open this year will be outside the U.S. Apple plans to open 25 retail stores in China by the end of 2011.

Despite a slight decline in iPod sales, revenues were up 12 percent due to increasing sales of the high-end iPod Touch models. Apple continues to command more than 70 percent of the MP3 player market.

Apple expects component prices will be overall neutral in the coming quarter. "The DRAM market is constrained, and we do expect higher pricing sequentially; but NAND, disk drives and displays are in balance," said Cook.

One analyst on Apple's earnings call said based on teardowns of the iPad it appears to have "dramatically lower margins than company average."

Cook said Apple does not release profit margins on individual products. However he did say, "we priced [the iPad] extremely aggressively because we did that because we think there's a huge market for it and we want to capitalize on our first mover advantage."

Apple expects to release the 3G cellular version of the iPad in the U.S. by the end of April. It will ship the iPad to nine additional countries by the end of May.

There was no discussion on the earnings call about reports of problems with the iPad's Wi-Fi connectivity