Today, Apple announced its financial results for the fourth calendar quarter of 2011 and first quarter of 2012. The street and analysts suggested a $40 billion quarter, but even their predictions were off. The company reported revenue of $46.33 billion and net quarterly profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $26.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. A massive Q1 blowout and this is the company’s best quarter ever. The company’s last quarter revenue was 2x of Microsoft’s and nearly 4.6x of Google’s!

In addition, gross margin was 44.7 percent, compared to the 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Apple’s quarterly profit and revenue were both company records. Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones, which is 128 percent from the year-ago quarter. It should be pointed out that copy-cat Samsung only *shipped* (not sold) 28 million smartphones last quarter. Also, the iPhone 4S was a total flop, just like the pundits said. A miserable 37 million sold! The company also sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, up 111 percent over the year-ago quarter. During the last quarter, Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, which represents a 21 percent unit decline over the year-ago quarter. This is a new record for iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales during the quarter.

Apple’s guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 includes expected revenue of $32.5 billion and earnings per diluted share of $8.50. You can listen to the live stream of its Q1 2012 financial results conference call here.

[Image credit: MacRumors]