Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. posted a 26 percent rise in profit as iPhone sales topped estimates and Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs reassured investors the computer maker will pull through an economic slump. The shares jumped 15 percent.

``We may get buffeted around by the waves a little bit, but we'll be fine and stronger than ever when the waters calm in the future,'' Jobs told analysts in his first appearance on the earnings conference call in eight years.

Apple sold 6.89 million iPhones in the quarter, reaching Jobs's goal of selling 10 million handsets three months ahead of schedule. Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., had estimated sales of 5 million. The demand for the iPhone, along with record shipments of Macintosh computers, helped investors look past a forecast that missed analysts' estimates.

``I still fully expect the company to gain share even in this turbulent economy,'' said Jim Grossman, an analyst at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans in Appleton, Wisconsin, which owns Apple shares.

Fourth-quarter profit advanced to $1.14 billion, or $1.26 a share, Cupertino, California-based Apple said in a statement. That beat the $1.11 a share estimated by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Sales rose 27 percent to $7.9 billion in the three months ended Sept. 27.

Apple rose $13.40 to $104.89 in extended trading after closing at $91.49 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have lost 54 percent this year.

`Hyper Conservative'

Profit this quarter will be $1.06 to $1.35 a share and sales will be as much as $10 billion, Apple said. Analysts had predicted earnings of $1.66 a share and revenue of $10.6 billion, according to a Bloomberg survey.

``They're just being hyper conservative,'' said Piper Jaffray's Munster, who is based in Minneapolis. ``For the most part, they haven't seen the economic slowdown in their core businesses.''

Apple has a history of disappointing with its forecast. While the company had topped analysts' profit estimates in the past eight quarters before today, the outlook fell short of predictions in all but one of those periods.

Apple shares slid 32 percent last quarter, their worst performance since 2001, on concern U.S. consumers will spend less as jobs become scarcer and house prices drop. The holiday season is one of Apple's two biggest sales periods, along with the back-to-school quarter that ended in September.

Delaying, Not Switching

Jobs said on the call that consumers are more likely to delay purchases in the economic slowdown rather than switching to lower cost personal computers.

Back-to-school promotions for the Mac, which accounts for about half of Apple's revenue, lifted shipments to 2.61 million units, compared with Munster's estimate of 2.7 million to 2.8 million.

Apple has relied on its more than 200 retail stores to promote the machine in the U.S., the world's biggest market for personal computers. Jobs, 53, cut the price of the entry-level MacBook to less than $1,000 for the first time this month and introduced faster versions of other laptops.

Apple said sales were $11.7 billion after setting aside a subscription accounting standard it had adopted last year in which it recognized sales from the iPhone and the Apple TV set- top box over two years. On that basis, iPhone sales in the quarter were about $4.6 billion, or 39 percent of Apple's total business.

In July, Apple released a speedier version of the iPhone and now sells the handset in more than 50 countries. To help win users away from Research In Motion's BlackBerry, Jobs added software that links the iPhone to corporate e-mail systems and opened an online application store.

``We have almost $25 billion safely in the bank and zero debt,'' Jobs said. ``This provides us tremendous stability and the ability to invest our way through this downturn.''

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

Last Updated: October 21, 2008 19:31 EDT