Thwock. Apple took expectations for its quarterly results and casually knocked them out of the park. Even a market primed for the technology group to beat its own guidance for sales and revenues – as it has consistently for the past three years – was surprised by the strength of the performance. In an otherwise deep consumer recession, Apple grew sales in the past year by 12 per cent, and earnings by 18 per cent. Its shares jumped in after-market trading on Monday to above $200 a share, an all-time high.

So is it time to start buying the view of future Apple ascendancy? The group’s iPhone, with its online application store, has established a platform to dominate the market for expensive smartphones and is about to be launched in China. Apple has neatly undermined mobile operators such as AT&T by making handsets, not service providers, the primary object of customers’ desire.