Apple tops Microsoft's quarterly sales, profits - CNET

With Microsoft's third fiscal quarter results out, it's time to compare the company to its longtime technology rival: Apple managed to come out on top of Microsoft in terms of sales and profits.

Apple, which reported its second fiscal quarter earnings last week, posted revenues of $24.67 billion with a net income of $5.99 billion. By comparison, Microsoft's just announced results put it at $16.43 billion with a net income of $5.23 billion.

Apple's most recently completed fiscal quarter ended March 26, 2011. Microsoft's ended March 31, 2011.

Apple made waves back in May, passing Microsoft in market capitalization. In October, Apple went on to pass Microsoft in revenues as well.

Some of Apple's biggest sales over the quarter were iPhones, with the company selling 18.65 million units. That number amounted to half of the company's revenues. Apple also saw considerable growth in Mac sales. Comparatively, Microsoft's quarterly earnings had big gains from the Office and Xbox businesses.

And some remember back in 1997 when Microsoft famously bailed out Apple as part of a $150 million investment and business deal that had Apple dropping its lawsuit against the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant, and adopting Internet Explorer as the default browser.