In Apple's quarterly earnings conference call, which began today at 2:00 p.m. PT, the company revealed new record profits for the September fiscal quarter (Q4).

Apple's quarterly revenue was $36.0 billion (up $7.7 billion year over year), with a quarterly net profit of $8.2 billion. Apple's Peter Oppenheimer attributed these record numbers mostly to strong iPhone and iPad device sales.

The company sold 26.9 million iPhones during Q4 (up 58% YOY) and 14 million iPads (up 26% YOY). Mac sales grew just 1% at 4.9 million units (but Apple's Peter Oppenheimer was eager to compare that against the 8% decline of the greater PC market).

Sales of iPods dropped 19% year over year, but Apple TV sales doubled. The iTunes store and iOS App store both set all-time quarterly records.

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The iPad mini's margin is "significantly below" Apple's average

Apple's retail store revenues grew 18%, thanks largely to a huge iPhone launch and to opening 18 new stores. Apple estimates that 94 million people visited an Apple store during the fiscal quarter, for an average of 19,000 per store per week.

For each issued share of Apple stock, the company turned a profit of $8.67. As Apple now has $121.3 billion in the bank (and they're still waiting on a big check from Samsung), its board has decided to pay out a dividend of $2.65/share on Nov 15th.

Apple's 2012 fiscal year is over now (Apple counts holiday sales as the first quarter of 2013), but the company ended its earnings call with predictions for the coming months. Apple expects to bring in $52 billion in holiday sales, with a gross margin of about 36%. That's actually a worse margin than Apple is used to (down from 40% this quarter), due to slimmer margins on the iPhone 5 and iPad mini.

Apple expects 80% of revenue in Q1 to come from products announced in the last 2 months. All of Apple's new products have higher costs than their predecessors and therefore lower gross margins. The iPad mini's margin is "significantly below" Apple's average.

Is your head spinning from the numbers? Fell free to hit us with any questions in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

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