Apple-holic's shocking AAPL stats and fiscal facts

Apple's 91-day quarter yields some impressive numbers -- take them apart a little and you get the kind of stats you can reel off at a dinner party without being seen as too utterly crushing a bore, for example, did you know there's one iPhone being sold for every two people being born into this world today?

Apple sold 16.24 million iPhones in the December quarter. That sure is a lot of iPhones, and while dwarfed by the 650 million bottles of Heinz Ketchup sold around the world each year means Apple sells more iPhones each year than there are cars sold worldwide.

Does this mean the iPhone is already more popular than the car?

• Apple sells over two iPhones every second of every day.
• (2.0656 iPhones are sold each second.)

• Approximately four children are born worldwide each second, so that's one iPhone for every two people being born into this world today.

• Apple sells 123 iPhones every minute of each day.
  (123.931624 iPhones). There's 7,435.9 sold every hour.

Apple has sold 89.94 million iPhones (including all versions) up to the end of December 25, 2010 (Some claim over 90 million). With each iOS user apparently downloading 60 Apps, that's a good business for App developers and iAd advertisers:

Apple will see its ten billionth App sale via iTunes in the coming weeks. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

[This story is from Computerworld's Apple Holic blog. Follow on Twitter or subscribe via RSS to make sure you don't miss a beat.]

iPads

7.33 million iPads were sold in the last quarter. Apple has sold 14.79 million iPads since the product went on sale. That's rather more than the three million some 'analysts' had predicted the company would shift in the year. It means:

Apple has sold 55,393 iPads each day since the industry-defining tablet went on sale in the US on April 3, 2010. While lower than the 300,000 sold on the first day the iPad went on sale in the US, that's still more iPads than the number of people you can fit inside the Yankee Stadium.

Every. Single. Day.

These figure also equates to over 20 million iPad sales in each calendar year -- though Apple sold almost double the number of iPads in its just gone quarter as it did in the preceeding quarter. This means the velocity of iPad sales are increasing.

55,393 is also the Zip Code for Maple Plain, Minnesota (Population: 6,466).

Here's a picture of the golf course in Maple Plain.

The magical iPod story goes ever on

There were 41.6 million PlayStation 2's sold worldwide as of September 30, 2010. Sony sold 200 million cassette-powered Walkman personal stereos across the life of that product.

Apple sold 19.45 million iPods during its first quarter alone. Here's a handy historical chart of iPod sales.These long ago outstripped Walkman sales.

Apple sells 2.47 iPods every second.

That's the same as the child fertility rate of women in Argentina.

Why Apple is in no way, no way at all, ignoring, turning its back on, or losing focus on the Mac

Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.

• A Mac is sold every two seconds

• Apple sells 31.52 Macs every minute of each day

• 45,384.6 Macs are sold each day

All current Macs are sold with instant access to the new Mac App Store. Apple served up one million Apps via that store on day one.

• Apple's retail stores sold 851,000 Macs in the last quarter.

• Apple is selling 6.5 Macs in an Apple retail store every minute of each day.

• Just imagine all the add-on sales.

Apple's Mac sales have grown at a faster rate than industry averages not just for the last few quarters, but for the last 19 consecutive quarters. In other words, Mac sales have been ascending at faster than industry growth for almost five years.

There is no way sucess with iOS means Apple has lost interest in the Mac. Indeed, with iOS features in the Lion planned for this year, Apple clearly hopes to attract some of those 160-plus million iOS users across to the Mac. That's a strategy that's working -- over half of all Macs sold in Apple retail stores go to customers new to the Mac....

"As we've seen on the Mac by the iPod some years ago, I think there is a halo effect from Apple product to Apple product. And of course, we have introduced millions of people in Asia to Apple through the iPhone. And we're now introducing many more through the iPad, and I think some of those decide to buy a Mac," said COO, Tim Cook, yesterday.

The iPhone and iPad are driving Mac sales in Asia

• Mac growth in Asia-Pacific is 67%

• In Japan growth at 56%.

Two years ago Apple generated $1 billion business in China. In its last quarter alone it realized $2.6 billion in business in China in three months.

If figures like that are maintained, Apple's business in China seems set to expand ten-fold in the current financial year.

• China's population is c. 1.3 billion.

• There are 0.8 billion bicycles in China

• There are 0.842 billion cellphone users.

Analsys expects 95 million smartphones will sell in China this year. Now Apple's iPhone 4 has Wi-Fi when sold in China -- and given the imminent likelihood that a CDMA version will be made available there too, it may not be long until there's as many iPhones in China as bicycles in Beijing.

Here's a popular song about bicycles in Beijing:

Some other interesting fiscal stat snacks:

• iTunes users are now renting and purchasing over 400,000 TV episodes and over 150,000 movies per day.

• Someone, somewhere, is renting and purchasing a movie from iTunes every minute of every day.

Over 80% of the Fortune 100 are already deploying or piloting iPad, up from 65% in the September quarter, these include:

• JP Morgan Chase
• Cardinal Health
• Wells Fargo
• Archer Daniels Midland
• Sears Holdings
• DuPont.

If you want more information, you can read the entire transcript of yesterday's financial call here. You can read Apple's own press release here, and check its data using links here. And don't forget to pop round to the experts here for all the hot rumors from Apple's underbelly.

I hope you've enjoyed wandering through my small collection of stats. I'd be grateful for any relevant off-the-wall stats you might wish to share in comments below. And I'd like to invite you to follow me on Twitter so I can let you know next time I post a new article here first on Computerworld.