Apple shares hit record high after profits soar

You have to hand it to Steve Jobs and his team: despite the boss being off work for months after a liver transplant, and the subsequent anxieties over the future of the computer corporation, Apple has defied the consumer recession with a year-on-year profits jump of 47 per cent in the last quarter up to end-September.

Overall profit rose to $1.67bn, or $1.82 a share, easily beating the estimate of $1.42 on Wall Street. The result took Apple shares to a record high last night, with pre-market trading this morning at $203 a share.

The charge was led by Mac computer sales, up 17 per cent, and iPhone sales, up seven per cent, helped by the launch in June of an updated handset. With more mobile phone companies in the UK carrying the iPhone for this Christmas - not to mention the rather bigger deal of an upcoming launch in China - there should be no stopping Apple, analysts believe.

On the computer front, Jobs said: "We've got a very strong line-up for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010."

He wouldn't go further than that, but trade observers expect "refreshes" of the desktop iMac range and the MacBook notebooks.

The FT reports that as well coming up with solid, well-marketed products, Apple has managed to exploit the "complexity and instability" of machines running Microsoft Windows. Some analysts believe Apple will be hoping to capitalise on this week's launch of Windows 7, focusing on the challenges of upgrading from Windows XP, which requires the laborious task of reinstalling all programmes.