Apple's 'dynamite numbers' leave rivals in dust

New 'cloud' music system beats Google's efforts and comes on top of record profits for quarter

Computer giant Apple is leaving its rivals in the dust, announcing a 95 per cent rise in profit and beating Google to the punch with a new "cloud" music service.

Apple has completed work on an online music storage system and is set to launch it ahead of web search firm Google, whose own music efforts have stalled, according to people familiar with both companies' plans.

Apple's plans will allow iTunes customers to store their songs on a remote server, and then access them from wherever they have an internet connection. Apple has yet to sign any new licences for the service and major music labels are hoping to secure deals before the service is launched, the sources say.

Google had been expected to launch a music service as a feature of its Android mobile operating system as far back as Christmas.

"They keep changing what they're asking for," said a label executive who asked not to be named.

Apple and Google are keen to offer services that give music fans more flexibility to access their media wherever they are rather than tying them to a particular computer or mobile device.

The news of Apple's music system came a day after the company smashed Wall St expectations with its second-quarter profit.

Apple said net income was US$5.99 billion ($7.47 billion), or US$6.40 a share - up 95 per cent from US$3.07 billion, or US$3.33 a share, a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting US$5.37 a share.

Revenue was US$24.7 billion, up 83 per cent from US$13.5 billion a year ago. Analysts were expecting US$23.4 billion.

The results were lifted by the record sale of 18.65 million iPhones, millions more than expected.

Apple's figures contained one blemish: it could not make its new iPads fast enough.

"We sold every iPad 2 we could make," chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said.

Apple sold 4.7 million iPads of both kinds in its latest quarter, below analysts' expectations. It launched the second version of the tablet computer two weeks before the end of the period.

Prospective buyers probably held off for the new model, which then turned out to be tough to find.

"Right now the only limit to how many products they can sell is how many they can produce," said Michael Walker, a portfolio manager at W.P. Stewart & Co.

Chief operating officer Tim Cook told investors timing production lines to the transition from one model to the next was always difficult.

The company had to make decisions "many, many weeks in advance". Now, he said, progress was being made on expanding iPad production. The company was expanding sales of the tablet to 13 more countries next week, bringing the total to 39.

"I'm very confident that we can produce a very large number of iPads for the quarter," said Cook.

After the release of the results, Apple shares rose US$14.34, or 4.2 per cent, to US$356.75 in extended trading, climbing more than half of the way to the all-time high of US$364.90.

Summing up the results, Channing Smith of Capital Advisers Growth Fund said: "Dynamite numbers across the board. The only hiccup is lower-than-expected iPad numbers."

- Agencies