April 22 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. reported second-quarter profit and sales that topped analysts’ estimates after the iPhone and new versions of the iPod helped the company sidestep a slump in consumer spending.

Net income rose 15 percent to $1.21 billion, or $1.33 a share, Apple said today in a statement. Sales climbed 8.7 percent to $8.16 billion in the period, which ended March 28. Analysts predicted profit of $1.08 a share and sales of $7.95 billion, according to a Bloomberg survey.

Apple sold 3.79 million iPhones last quarter, double the year-earlier amount, as it began offering the device in more countries. The company also updated its iMac desktop computer and iPod Shuffle to maintain sales in the post-holiday period. Lower component prices allowed Apple to boost profit margins, even as the recession weighed on consumer shopping.

“I don’t know how they can defy the laws of physics with the gross margin,” said Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis. The iPhone is Apple’s most profitable product, with a gross margin of about 43 percent, he estimates. That compares with 35 percent for the Mac and 25 percent for the iPod, he said.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, rose $3.39, or 2.8 percent, to $124.90 in late trading after the report was released. The shares, up 42 percent this year, had closed at $121.51 today on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Lowball Numbers

Apple expects third-quarter sales to be $7.7 billion to $7.9 billion, with profit of 95 cents to $1 a share. Analysts on average had projected revenue of $8.25 billion and profit of $1.12, according to the Bloomberg survey. The company’s forecasts are typically conservative, missing Wall Street’s estimates in nine of the 10 previous quarters, Munster said.

Apple’s second-quarter gross margin, the percentage of sales remaining after taking out production costs, was 36.4 percent, higher than the 33.5 percent predicted by Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Bros. in San Francisco. The margin was 32.9 percent a year earlier, when the company had profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 a share.

Last quarter was Apple’s first without the day-to-day guidance of Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who went on a five-month medical leave starting in January. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook is running the company in his absence.

Apple looks forward to Jobs’s return at the end of June, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said today on a conference call.

IPhone Expansion

Sales of iPhone handsets generated $2.2 billion last quarter, Oppenheimer said. The phone is now available in 81 countries, up from six a year ago. Apple will delay recognizing revenue on iPhones sold after March 17 until after the company releases a new version of the phone’s software, he said. That software is due in the next few months.

Apple began offering applications for the iPhone last July. Customers will download the billionth program from the company’s App Store by tomorrow, Apple said.

Investors expect Apple to introduce more products in June -- including a new iPhone, an iPod Touch media player with a larger screen, and possibly a tablet computer -- providing another sales boost, said Andy Hargreaves, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities Inc. in Portland, Oregon. He expects the shares to outperform the market.

Apple declined to comment on products in development. Cook said only that the company is “very excited about the other products in our pipeline.”

AT&T Relationship

Apple doesn’t plan to offer the iPhone to other U.S. wireless carriers besides AT&T Inc., its exclusive partner in the country, Cook said.

“We’ve very happy with the relationship that we have and do not have a plan to change it,” he said. “We view AT&T as a very good partner.”

In its results for last quarter, Apple released an adjusted sales figure -- one that doesn’t use its typical accounting rule of spreading revenue from the iPhone and Apple TV set-top box over two years. On that basis, revenue was $9.06 billion.

When Jobs went on medical leave, he said he needed to recover from weight loss caused by a hormone imbalance. The 54- year-old executive had surgery to remove an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor in 2004, taking a month off to recuperate.

“The company does well even without Jobs,” said Hakim Kriout, a portfolio manager at Grigsby & Associates, a New York- based securities-trading firm that holds Apple shares. “These numbers confirm there are few alternative good choices to owning Apple.”

Unit Sales

IPod sales climbed 3 percent to 11 million last quarter, Apple said. Part of that gain came from the iPod Touch, a video and music player that has the same touch screen as the iPhone. Sales of the Touch doubled last quarter from a year ago, Cook said, without giving exact shipments. Sales of the Touch and iPhone combined now total more than 37 million, he said.

While Mac sales dropped 3 percent to 2.22 million, they exceeded analysts’ estimates. The MacBook Air, Apple’s ultra- portable notebook, debuted in the year-earlier quarter, boosting sales for that period.

Analysts on average had anticipated sales of 3.3 million iPhones, 10 million iPods and 2.1 million Macs, Munster said.

Apple reiterated a negative view of netbooks, scaled-down notebook computers that usually sell for $400 or less. The company isn’t interested in the netbook market as it stands today, Cook said. If buyers want a small computer, they should consider the iPhone or iPod Touch, he said.

“When I look at what is being sold in the netbook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens -- it’s just not something we would put the Mac brand on,” Cook said. “If we find a way where we can deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, then we’ll do that.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 22, 2009 19:40 EDT