Apple has reported record quarterly profits thanks to a surge in the number of iPhones sold in its fiscal first quarter.

The firm made a net profit of $18bn between October and December last year, making it the biggest quarterly profit ever recorded by a public company.

Apple beat analyst expectations during the last 90 days of 2014, selling 74.5m iPhones - more than the amount sold in the previous six months put together.

The company benefited from boosted interest over the Christmas period, as well as a 70% increase in sales in China compared to a year ago. Sales in the Americas also grew by 23% while European numbers went up by 20%.

"This volume is hard to comprehend," CEO Tim Cook said during a conference call with investors yesterday (January 27). "On average, we sold over 34,000 iPhones every hour, 24 hours a day, every day of the quarter."

Sales of the iPad continued to dwindle and dropped by 18% compared to a year earlier, but Apple also managed to move 5.5 million Mac units - an increase of 700,000 compared to last year.

"We'd like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high," Cook added. "Our revenue grew 30% over last year to $74.6bn, and the execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal."

The Apple CEO also spoke about the Apple Watch and revealed that it will be released in April.