Apple continues to break records for revenue and profit thanks to a surge in sales of Macs and the illustrious iPod. Apple announced first quarter earnings for fiscal year 2007, ending December 30, 2006. They managed to push through over 21 million iPods during the quarter (that works out to about 162 iPods per minute!) and 1.6 million Macs. These numbers represent a 50% and a 28% increase respectively for those products versus Q1 2006. I personally helped to contribute to that number by buying 2 iPods (one video, one shuffle) as gifts for the holidays. All those Macs and iPods add up to a 78% revenue increase versus Q1 2006.

The bottom line is that Apple, the company that was pretty much written off the map 10 years ago, posted a profit (yeah, that’s actual money in the bank) of $1 billion. To me, that’s simply amazing. I know that other companies post bigger profits than that, but think about the size of the market that Apple caters to. As far as computers are concerned, Macs are barely on the map at like less than 5% of the total market. And I know the iPod has a huge market share in the mp3 market, but it’s still amazing what this company has been able to pull off in a fairly short time span.

And let me insert my disclaimer here, I am a Mac user. Yes, I am probably the biggest Apple fanboy out there (I ordered my Apple TV as soon as it was available online at the Apple Store) but you have to respect a company that has made all the right moves to become a dominant force in the computer/technology industry. And now that the company has dropped the “computer” from it’s name, I can only think they will be venturing forth into other areas.

But will Apple be able to maintain the dominance as a consumer electronics company? Could they be the new Sony? Time will only tell, but we could get a hint of that dominance in June with the (proposed) release of the iPhone (or whatever they may have to call it). I’m looking forward to seeing what Apple will do. However, my credit card is not so hopeful…

Read [Apple] via [DailyTech]