Apple sold more iPhones in the last 90 days than it did in half of 2014, the company has announced. It sold a whopping 74.5 million iPhones total in the run up to Christmas, a fraction more than the company sold in the 180 days prior to that from April to September in 2014.

Analysts predicted Apple's first financial quarter of 2015 would be big, and they were were right. The sales, which show a huge jump of 46 per cent in sales of the iPhone line as a whole compared to the same quarter last year, spearheaded huge turnover and profit for the company.

apple sells 74 5m iphones in last 90 days more than the previous six months put together image 2

Total quarterly revenue was $74.6 billion, while quarterly net profit was $18 billion, compared to revenue of $57.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $13.1 billion, or $1.98 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. The company attributed its record results to 74.5 million iPhone units sold during the 90-day period that ended on 27 December, up from 51 million units a year earlier.

Apple's last major iPhone record occurred during the holiday quarter in 2013, when its iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C models were new, and the company sold 51 million units.

Apple iPhone sales by the numbers

  • 74.5 million in 90 days
  • 24,833,333 a month
  • 6,208,333 a week
  • 877,777 a day
  • 36,574 a hour
  • 609 a minute
  • 10 iPhones sold a second

It's not just iPhone

Apple kept its momentum going in the first financial quarter by also moving 5.5 million Mac units, up from 4.8 million a year earlier. However it's not all good news: iPad sales were down, even though Apple released the new iPad Air 2 in September. It only sold 21.4 million iPad units during the quarter, down from 26 million in the year-ago quarter.

Wall Street predicted Apple would see 65 million to 70 million iPhone units during the quarter, considerably under the actual figure. Other guesswork included 22 million iPad units.

Apple's conference call is scheduled to kick off at 2 PM PST. The company will probably talk more about the quarter and what's next, without giving away too many details of course.

What's all the fuss about? Read our iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus reviews