Apple second-quarter profit up 36% - Mac sales up 51%

Apple's second quarter net income rose 36 percent to $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per share, from $770 million, or 87 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue is up 43 percent to $7.51 billion thanks to strong demand for notebooks such as the new MacBook Air. Apple sold 2.29 million Mac computers, 10.6 million iPods and 1.7 million iPhones in the quarter. Sales of the iPod only grew 1 percent year-over-year but sales of Mac computers jumped 51 percent.

The firm beat analyst expectations by 10 cents per share and the $7.51 billion revenue is also a lot higher than the consensus of $6.96 billion. However, the company's guidance for the third quarter isn't as good as analyst were hoping for:

The profit forecast for the third quarter disappointed some investors who wanted more.

``The only fly in the ointment would appear to be the earnings guidance,'' said David Garrity, an analyst at Dinosaur Securities Inc. in New York. ``Investors are jumpy, if nothing else.''

Apple forecast profit for the current quarter of $1 a share, missing the average estimate among analysts of $1.11. Sales will rise to rise to $7.2 billion, Apple said, matching the average prediction of analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

Apple's profit forecast missed analysts' estimates in eight of the nine previous periods. The company topped its forecast in each of those quarters.

Apple's shares dropped 2.8 percent in afterhours trading.