Apple Computer has posted much stronger-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue on heavy sales of its iPod digital music players and notebook computers.

For the first time, Apple sold more iPods in a quarter than it did its signature Macintosh computers. Sales of the trendy gadgets even topped levels seen in the preceding holiday sales-fuelled December quarter.

"Apple shipped more iPods this quarter than they did during the Christmas quarter, which is pretty telling," said analyst Ms Shannon Cross of Cross Research. She had expected Apple to sell 600,000 iPods in the quarter - it shipped 807,000.

For its second quarter, ended March 27th, Apple - which employs about 900 people in Cork - said net income more than tripled to $46 million (€38.4 million), or 12 US cents per share, from $14 million, or four cents, a year earlier. Revenue surged to $1.91 billion from $1.48 billion.

The company also issued an outlook for its current (third) quarter that was above the most optimistic Wall Street estimates.

"Clearly, it's sustained good news," said Mr Barry Jaruzelski, lead partner in Booz Allen Hamilton's global technology and electronics practice.

Apple said it shipped 749,000 Macintosh computers during the second quarter, up 5 per cent from the year-earlier period. Sales of iPods rose more than tenfold.

Revenue from iPod sales was $264 million, up from $31 million a year ago when the iPod was just getting started. Revenue from its iBook notebook computers climbed 48 per cent to $223 million, while sales of its Power Mac computers increased 19 per cent to $349 million.

Gross margin was 27.8 per cent, down from 28.3 per cent a year earlier.

Analysts had forecast the company to earn, on average, 10 US cents per share on revenue of $1.81 billion. - (Reuters)