Apple announced the financial results for its fiscal 2008 third quarter yesterday, posting revenue of $7.46 billion and net a quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share. Apple's Q3 2008 ended June 28, 2008.

Comparing the results with revenue of $5.41 billion and net quarterly profit of $818 million, or $.92 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter, gross margin was 34.8 percent - down from 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. 42 percent of the quarter's revenue was international sales.

Having shipped 2,496,000 Macintosh computers during this third quarter, Apple notes these sales represent 41 percent unit growth and 43 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter, claiming "record third quarter results" for Mac sales alone.

With 11,011,000 iPods shipped worldwide, the popular media players made up for 12 percent unit growth and seven percent revenue growth over the same quarter last year. Lastly, Apple's third business in rank, the iPhone, sold some 717,000 units, compared to 270,000 in the year-ago-quarter.

"We're proud to report the best June quarter for both revenue and earnings in Apple's history," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We set a new record for Mac sales, we think we have a real winner with our new iPhone 3G, and we're busy finishing several more wonderful new products to launch in the coming months."

"We're extremely pleased with the growth of our business and the generation of almost $5.4 billion in cash in the first three quarters of fiscal 2008," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $7.8 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.00."

The Cupertino-based Macintosh maker also made available a live streaming version of its Q3 2008 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PDT on Monday, July 21, 2008. The replay will be available soon, says Apple.