Apple announced some massive fourth quarter sales numbers yesterday. For instance, they sold virtually as many iPhones as there are people in South Africa during that period. Apple also doubled both revenue and profit year-on-year too.

Let’s have a look at the numbers, then.

Apple CEO, Tim Cook, took the opportunity yesterday to announce a bombshell: that iPads had outsold desktop computers in the fourth quarter of 2011.

These figures came directly from the International Data Corporation (IDC), which is part of the world’s leading technology media, events and research company, the International Data Group (IDG).

Apple reported 15,4 million iPads sold. It’s almost fair to say that there isn’t a massive tablet market out there, but rather an iPad market. Cook explained that 55 million iPads have been sold since the original launch back in April 2010.

The iPad market share is now equal to 17 per cent of the overall PC market.

Specifically referring to the Kindle Fire, Cook explained that when looking over Apple’s numbers, they didn’t seem to see any impact from the Kindle Fire being on the market. Good or bad.

Apple sold 37 million iPhones during this quarter.

And for the same fourth quarter period, Microsoft’s net income was $6,62 billion. Apple’s was $13,06 billion.

This net income figure reported by Apple is the equivalent of what their revenue was for their 2010 fourth quarter.

As Tech Crunch points out:

Apple’s revenues, while massive, are nothing compared to a company like Walmart, which reported $109.5 billion in revenue last quarter. BUT that $109.5 billion only turned into $3.3 billion of actual income for the quarter. In other words, Walmart has more than double the revenues of Apple, but Apple has more than four times the profits of Walmart. That’s remarkable.

Steve Jobs would be pleased.

[Sources: BusinessInsider, TechCrunch]