World Bulletin / News Desk

Apple on Tuesday reported a rebound in iPhone sales to lift the tech giant to record revenue in the past quarter in quarterly results that topped most forecasts.

Revenue in the quarter climbed to an all-time record $78.4 billion compared with $75.9 billion in the same period a year earlier, the company said in its earnings update for the fiscal first quarter.

Apple said that it sold 78.3 million iPhones in the quarter, up five percent from the same prime holiday shopping period the prior year.

The growth promised to assuage concerns by investors that iPhone sales, which account for the bulk of Apple's revenue, were softening due to three quarters of sequential decline.

"We're thrilled to report that our holiday quarter results generated Apple's highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way," Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in the earnings release.

"We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch."

The amount of money taken in from online services and digital content grew strongly, led by unprecedented customer activity at Apple's online App Store, according to Cook.

"I have not yet done the numbers but I think Apple had the best quarter in the history of humanity," Asymco analyst Horace Dediu said in a comment fired off on Twitter.

Apple, however, did see revenue in its important China market drop 12 percent to $16.2 billion, according to the earnings report.

Apple shares were up more than 2.5 percent to $124.44 in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings results.

Some analysts say Apple remains too dependent on the iPhone and that it needs to better diversify its revenues amid a sputtering smartphone market and intense competition.

Apple said services revenue grew 18 percent from a year ago to $7.2 billion, while "other" products including the Apple Watch, brought in $4 billion.

"While the iPhone has been arguably the most successful profit driver in recent consumer electronic history, Apple's dependence on sales of hardware to drive revenue is a future pitfall for the company," said Colin Gillis of BGC Financial in a research note.