New York, January 25 (FinanceEnquiry.com) - The unprecedented demand of iPhone and iPad has more than doubled Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) fourth-quarter profit, which has ensured its place as the most valuable technology company and sounded alarm bells for rivals Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Samsung. The quarter’s net income of $13.1 billion distinguished itself as the highest quarterly profit on record and in the same category as Exxon Mobil and Russia’s Gazprom OAO.

Apple earned a profit of $13.87 per share for the quarter, which was more than its earnings in any full year before 2010. Nearly 37 million iPhones were sold by Apple in the fourth quarter. The record revenue of Apple catapulted the company far ahead of Hewlett-Packard as the world’s biggest computer maker by sales.

In German trading, Apple stock surged as much as 7.6 percent to the equivalent of $454.69. In extended trading in the U.S., Apple shares rose as much as 12 percent to $468.95, overtaking its record closing price of $429.11 on January 18. On the basis of this gain, Apple’s market value would be $437.1 billion, beating Exxon’s $417.9 billion market capitalization at yesterday’s close. Apple announced yesterday that its sales rose 73 percent to $46.3 billion in the fiscal first quarter. Analysts’ average expectation was net income of $10.14 a share on the sales of $39 billion.