Apple delivers its best quarterly performance according to Steve Jobs, led by hot iPod sales.

Apple’s latest quarterly results for the period ending June 25 saw its net income quadruple on a sales jump of 75 percent.

“We are delighted to report Apple’s best quarter ever in both revenue and earnings,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The launch of Mac OS X Tiger has been a tremendous success, and we have more amazing new products in the pipeline.”

Profits rose to $320 million, or 37 cents per share. Last year, the same quarter saw $61 million at 8 cents per share. Sales jumped to $3.52 billion, a 75 percent increase from last year’s $2.01 billion.

The Cupertino-based company shipped 6.155 million iPods and 1.182 million Macintosh computers in the quarter.

“We’re very pleased to report 75 percent revenue growth and a 425 percent increase in net income,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2005, we expect revenue of about $3.5 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $.32.”

Apple also showed an increase in gross margin to 29.7 percent from 27.8. That’s an encouraging sign, and shows that Apple is doing a better job of controlling its costs.

“The numbers indicate iPod demand is still going strong,” said Davis Jefferson, president of Jefferson Consulting and a longtime member of the Mac community. “Naysayers talked about a ‘halo effect’ with competing products coming out.

“iPod has become a cultural icon. And it looks like news of the Intel switch hasn’t hurt Apple, either.”

David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.