Recession? What Recession? Apple posts “most profitable quarter ever”

The latest round of financial results give an interesting view on where the power lies in the mobile industry. While the traditional telco firms continue to take a battering in the economic storm, everything is coming up roses for Apple and Google.

Apple this week reported its “most profitable quarter ever,” racking up $1.67bn in earnings for the quarter ended September 26, compared to $1.14bn in the year ago quarter. Revenues were also up from $7.9bn a year ago to $9.87bn in the 2009 quarter.

The Californian firm sold 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing seven per cent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. The latest version of the device – the iPhone 3GS (the ‘S’ stands for ‘speed’) – was launched in June 2009.

Apple has a method for accounting iPhone revenues by which the company recognises revenue and cost of goods sold for the device over its estimated economic life, which the company says, would result in $12.25bn of “adjusted sales” for the quarter and $2.85bn in “adjusted net income.”

Naturally, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, was buoyed at the news. “We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter. We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010.”

Last week, Android-backer Google cliamed the recession is all but over, reporting an increase in net profit for the third quarter to €1.6bn from €1.3bn in the same period last year.

During the earnings call, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said: “Mobile is a high-growth business for us already, with 30 per cent quarter-over-quarter growth in mobile searches in the third quarter.”