Apple just reported the highest quarterly profit. Ever

Apple has posted the biggest quarterly profit ever made by a public company after selling more than 74 million iPhones in three months.

In a press release last night, the technology giant revealed it had made $74.6bn (£50.8bn) in revenue and $18bn (£11.85bn) net profit in its first fiscal quarter which ended on 27 December.

Charts from Statista

That revenue figure represents 30 per cent growth on last year and the profit exceeds the previous record which was ExxonMobil's $15.9bn in the second quarter of 2012.

Shares in Apple rose by five per cent following the news and the company revealed that 65 per cent of its profits came from international markets.

We’d like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high...

The execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal.

• Tim Cook, Apple CEO

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