CUPERTINO, California: Apple, the electronics giant, is hoping to win the battle for "mind share" in key emerging markets, having successfully "trained" millions of customers to adopt new habits elsewhere.

The company posted $20.3bn (€14.8bn; £12.9bn) in revenue during the last quarter, as sales surged by over $8.1bn year-on-year.

"Our innovative product line-up is the best ever and customer response has been tremendous," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer. "As a result, we set new all-time records for Mac, iPhone and iPad sales in the September quarter."

The iPhone sold 14.1m units in the last quarter, 91% growth on an annual basis, thanks to particularly strong demand in Japan, the rest of Asia and Europe.

Having introduced the latest variant of this device in China in September, Oppenheimer reported that initial figures appeared positive.

"We were very happy to be shipping iPhone 4 in China as of the last day of the September quarter, and we've been very pleased with the customer response to date," he added.

"Our four China stores are our highest traffic stores in the world and are among our highest performing."

More broadly, alongside securing considerable public interest, the iPhone is proving especially popular as a business aid.

"Since we've shipped iPhone 4, we've seen extraordinary growth from 60% to more than 80% of Fortune 500 companies deploying or piloting iPhone," Oppenheimer continued.

"Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Pfizer, Allstate, and Cardinal Health and Global 500 accounts such as Aviva Group, Total, Novartis, Roche and Sanofi-Aventis have made iPhone available to their employees."

Similar trends can be seen for the iPad, as numerous major corporations have implemented early moves to test the tablet PC.

"Since the launch of iPad, over 65% of the Fortune 100 is already deploying or piloting iPad," Oppenheimer revealed.

"Some recent examples of companies approving iPad include Procter & Gamble, Lowes, NBC Universal and Novartis."

In all, 4.2m iPad were purchased in 26 countries during the previous three months, and this gadget is now sold through chains like Wal-Mart and Target.

Approximately 30,000 apps - measured against 300,000 of these tools across the entire App Store - are solely accessible via the iPad.

Steve Jobs, Apple's ceo, predicted this appliance could undermine demand for netbooks, but should not cannibalise cellphones, meaning alternative tablets boasting smaller screens were unlikely to gain ground.

"No tablet can compete with the mobility of a smartphone, its ease of fitting into your pocket or purse, its unobtrusiveness when used in a crowd," he said.

"The seven-inch tablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad."

Jobs further suggested the experience subscribers had gained utilising the iPhone would encourage greater uptake of the latest addition to Apple's portfolio.

"This is a new model of computing which we've already got tens of millions of people trained on with the iPhone," Jobs argued. "And that lends itself to lots of different aspects of life … personal, educational and business.

"We've priced iPad pretty aggressively. So we're out to win this one."

Turning to mobile, Jobs forecast that sizeable, fast-growing economies may soon witness increasing rivalry between manufacturers.

"The largest market of phones today around the world are not smartphones. And so over the next several years, many of those non-smartphones are going to convert to smartphones," he said.

"I think right now it's a battle for developers and a battle for the mind share of developers and a battle for the mind share of customers. And right now iPhone and Android are winning that battle."

Data sourced from SeekingAlpha; additional content by Warc staff