On this – the approximate first anniversary of the iPhone 3G – Apple (News - Alert) posted a 15 percent rise in profits, to $1.23 billion, for the three-month period ended June 27 – reflecting, largely, a staggering 5.2 million units of the wildly popular and immeasurably influential smartphones sold.

 

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s iconic CEO, Steve Jobs (News - Alert) – a man about whom, given his health, nearly as many rumors swirl as about the iPhone (News - Alert) itself – said Apple is making its “most innovative products ever and our customers are responding.”

 

“We’re thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year,” Jobs said.

 

Some context: the 5.2 million figure represents 626 percent unit growth year-over-year.

 

That’s welcome news, especially as it was just two quarters ago that analysts declared – to the surprise of many non-business users – that the BlackBerry (News - Alert) Curve had outsold the iPhone for one quarter.

 

Officials at Apple said their revenues for the quarter (the company’s third quarter, by its own fiscal calendar) – the largest non-holiday quarterly revenue and earnings in the storied company’s history – came to $8.34 billion, up from $7.46 billion in the year-ago quarter. The company also posted a profit of $1.35 per share, up from $1.19 per share one year ago. Gross margins also were up to 36.3 percent, from 34.8 percent.

 

Interestingly, iPod sales declined 7 percent year-over-year, to 10.2 million units sold in the quarter, though Apple sold 2.6 million Macintosh computers, which marks a 4 percent unit increase.

 

The company’s chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, said he was “pleased” (who wouldn’t be?) to report cash flow of $2.3 billion.

 

“Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $1.18 to $1.23,” he said.