APPLE has seen profits leap 27 per cent to £292m off the back of strong global demand for its iPod music player and laptop computers in its fourth quarter.
The US technology firm said it had shipped more than 8.5 million iPods for sale during the period, up 35 per cent on a year ago.
Apple said it had the best Macintosh quarter in its history and sold nearly one million notebook Macs, up 56 per cent
from a year ago.
The number of Macs sold topped the previous record of 1.38 million in the first quarter of 2000.
Total sales in three months to the end of September rose to £2.59 billion from £1.97bn for the same period last year.
Apple added that it was looking forward to a successful coming year, saying it expected sales to shoot up to between £3.2bn and £3.3bn in the first-quarter of next year.
Steve Jobs, chief executive, said the firm had sold a total of 39m iPods and 5.3m Macs over the whole year.
He said: "This strong quarter caps an extraordinary year for Apple.
"Looking forward, 2007 is likely to be one of the most exciting new product years in Apple's history."
Apple's accounts are subject to changes after it restated some historical quarterly reports due to earlier mishandling of stock options accounting.
