Apple chief Tim Cook hints at “amazing” new products

 

Rumours include the iPad 3 being released in March.

Technology giant Apple has achieved its best ever quarterly results, selling 37 million iPhones worldwide in the last three months of 2011.

Sales of the smartphone more than doubled in the 14 weeks before New Year, which included the launch of the iPhone 4S, giving Apple net profits in excess of $13billion (£8.4billion).

Chief executive Tim Cook, who replaced the late Steve Jobs in August, has hinted at what Apple’s customers can expect in months to come. Current rumours include a March release of the iPad 3.

He said: “Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline. We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs.”

In fact, the only damp figure in these latest results was a 21% drop in iPod sales, to 15.4 million units worldwide. However, both the iPhone and iPad have integrated music players, which could help explain the decline.

Meanwhile, the iPhone frenzy looks set to continue. A recent study found that smartphone users are increasingly ditching other platforms to be part of the Apple crowd.

According to research by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIPR), over 35% of people who bought the iPhone 4S had previously owned phones on rival operating systems, such as Android or BlackBerry.

In addition, the report shows that 21% of iPhone 4S owners choose the model with the highest available storage capacity of 64GB. But Apple is still up against intense competition from other smartphone manufacturers.

Samsung and Motorola have both unveiled new handsets for 2012, while reinvigorated Finnish firm Nokia revealed the Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 900 earlier this month.

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