Apple has announced its second-quarter earnings, and the results are above both what it forecasted and what Wall Street expected.

The stand-out news is that Apple sold 61.1 million iPhones and generated $58 billion in revenue during the 90-day period, which ended on 31 March, making it the company's second biggest quarter in terms of iPhone sales and revenue. Apple claimed it sold 43.7 million iPhones in the year-ago quarter, while last quarter it sold a record 74.5 million iPhones and brought in $51.2 billion in revenue.

Analysts expected Apple to report earnings of $2.16 a share and $56.08 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters. As far as the other financial bits go, Apple posted a quarterly net profit of $13.6 billion, or $2.33 per diluted share, which is an increase compared to Apple's net profit of $10.2 billion, or $1.66 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

Apple said international sales accounted for 69 per cent of the quarter’s revenue. Other numbers worth mentioning include 12.6 million iPads sold and 4.5 million Macs sold. iPad sales underperformed when compared to analyst expectations of 13.94 million. iPad sales were down last quarter as well, even though Apple released the new iPad Air 2 in September. Only 21.4 million iPad units sold in Q1.

“We are thrilled by the continued strength of iPhone, Mac and the App Store, which drove our best March quarter results ever,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, in a statement. “We’re seeing a higher rate of people switching to iPhone than we’ve experienced in previous cycles, and we’re off to an exciting start to the June quarter with the launch of Apple Watch.”

Shares of Apple rose 1.54 per cent to $134.69 in after-hours trading on Monday. Tune into Apple's conference call beginning at 2 pm to hear executives discuss the financial results in more detail.