Apple on Wednesday announced a profit of $818 million for its fiscal third quarter, which ended June 30, 2007. The company reported earnings of $5.41 billion for the quarter, with record-high Mac sales for the quarter.

Apple handily beat analyst predictions for the quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call expected Apple to report $0.72 per share of $5.28 billion in revenue; instead, the company reported $0.92 per share.

The iPhone

Apple only sold iPhones during the final 30 hours of the quarter, as they went on sale on June 29th. Despite AT&T's recent news that it only activated 146,000 iPhones for the quarter, but Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer revealed that the company sold 270,000 iPhones through its stores and AT&T stores during those 30 hours.

During a question and answer session with analysts following Peter Oppenheimer's preamble, Apple COO Tim Cook said that AT&T reports that it sold more iPhones during the first weekend than it had sold in a month of any other wireless device in its history.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs also revealed that he anticipates Apple will sell its one-millionth iPhone by the end of its fourth quarter -- the first full quarter of iPhone sales. Oppenheimer noted during his preamble that it took Apple seven quarters to sell its first million iPods.

Cook said that based on the demand the company has seen thus far, Apple is confident it will sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.

Oppenheimer acknowledged that iPhone buyers had activation problems during the first week the iPhone was out in the world, and apologized on behalf of Apple for those difficulties. He indicated that AT&T has corrected "the most common cause" of those problems, and since then, iPhone customers haven't had many problems getting their iPhones to work.

Apple will reveal who its international partners are for iPhone sales later this quarter, said Oppenheimer. Apple will expand iPhone sales first to Europe in the fourth calendar quarter, with Asia to follow in 2008.

Cook noted that Apple "saw absolutely no evidence" of iPod cannibalization during the quarter -- no indication that users purchasing iPhones might otherwise buy an iPod.