Apple’s profits have almost doubled in the first quarter of 2012. Sales rose 73% to $46.3 billion from $26.7 billion for the same time a year ago according to Bloomberg. These exceptional results were mainly due to the doubling of the sales of the iphone and the ipad within the year. These results went way past the market analysts expectations and as a consequence apple’s shares jumped almost 8% in after-hours trading to $453.16. But the majority of the increase in revenue came from sales outside of the US, these sales accounted for 64% of the quarter’s revenue, which suggests that the US market is reaching saturation point. Further evidence of this comes from Verizon Wireless that has reported in recent weeks a slight dip in iPhone sales. AT&T has also experienced a dip too in sales it had activated 4.3 million iPhones in this quarter which is down by 7.6 million compared to the fourth quarter.
