"iPhone sales were a hair's breath from making Apple a phone company," said Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research, referring to the smartphone's revenue impact. "But that's the adoption curve on new technology. The iPhone is screaming out of there, and it's a heck of a business, and will be for at least the next year or two."

Apple sold a record 18.6 million iPhones, up 113% over the same period last year and a 15% increase over the final quarter of 2010, which was the previous record. On a revenue basis, the iPhone's contribution was 49.9% of total revenues, two-and-a-half times that of the Mac or more than four times that of the .

Marshall expressed disappointment in iPad sales, which sold 4.7 million units, a 36% drop from the prior period and well off his projection of 5.3 million. Most other analysts had forecast even larger sales for the tablet, with some predicting as many as 8 million would be sold.

"Clearly, demand for the iPad 2 was much greater than Apple expected," said Marshall, talking about the continued problems the company has had meeting demand.

Apple declined to separately report sales numbers for the new iPad 2, which , but CFO Peter Oppenheimer claimed that Apple could have sold more if it had them. "We sold every iPad 2 we could make," he said.