Apple reports the largest ever quarterly profits - how many billion was it?

Apple, whose earnings over Christmas jumped by 38%, announced a world corporate record $18bn profit.

16:34 28 January 2015

Apple has the broken World Corporate record after it reported quarterly profits of $18bn for the last three months of 2014. The company sold 74.5 million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus between October and December.

Experts predict that Apple’s total revenue would be $53.6bn for the quarter. However Apple’s CEO Tim Cook says this was closer to $74.6bn.

Analysts say that Apple took a while to understand that the public wanted larger screens – an initially costly mistake that saw their market share begin to plummet.

Gartner's Van Baker said: "They finally closed the gap on a feature they were missing, which their competition had capitalised on."

Despite record-breaking quarterly profits, some investors are concerned on how the company will perform financially this year. iPad sales are down by 22per cent and experts claim that growth in the smartphone sector is starting to slow down.

The California-based firm is set to launch a smartwatch in March.

Apple is currently the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of $651bn (£428bn).