Apple's Gala Christmas: 48 million iPhones, 23 million iPads sold

Apple had a Gala Christmas, harvesting a juicy profit of $13.1 billion in three months.

In that three-month period (Apple's Q1) Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones, 22.9 million iPads, 4.1 million Macs and more than 2 million Apple TVs.

The iPad is selling at such a rate now that it could top 90 million sales in 2013, noted GamesIndustry.biz. In one year, then, the iPad could easily outstrip lifetime sales of PS3 or 360, and roughly match that of Wii.

The iPhone numbers are even more ridiculous. It could do as many as 200 million sales in 2013.

Apple, during the same period last year, sold 37 million iPhones, 15.4 million iPads, 5.2 million Macs and around 1.2 million Apple TVs.

Apple noted that more than 40 billion apps had been downloaded (ever) and more than $7 billion paid out to developers of them. Games are top dog so presumably a lot of that money went there.

Despite the overwhelming success of iDevices, Apple's stock dropped by over 10 per cent after the financial report was aired. That's because investors are worried about dwindling Mac sales.

Apple's Tim Cook was "incredibly excited" about the year to come, and Apple's "very full" product pipeline it has planned.

Don't look now, but Apple's cash pile is so big now - $137.1 billion (£86.6 billion) - it may need a dragon like Smaug to defend it.