Apple's sales figures obviously don't include the just-announced , which the company unveiled earlier this week. Still, Apple's 7.9-inch tablet was a topic of conversation during Thursday's conference call as analysts pressed Apple on the mini's $329 price tag.

"When we set out to build the iPad mini, we didn't set out to be a small, cheap tablet," Oppenheimer said. "We set out to build a full iPad."

Cook dismissed lower-cost offerings from the likes of Amazon and Kindle on the tablet front. "We've seen low-cost challengers before," he said. "[The] iPad continues to beat any other tablet on the market at any price. We think customers are very smart, we think they have high expectations, we think that they want a device that can do more. We think our focus on making the best product is what will win at the end of the day, and we will stay true to that."

Mac sales rose a modest 1 percent, with Apple selling 4.9 million Macs during the quarter. That's a record for the September quarter. More significantly, Apple is one of the few PC makers to see its business expanding: Market-research firm IDC says the overall PC market contracted by 8 percent during the September quarter.