Californian kit vendor Apple bucked the credit crunch trend during the first quarter, as strong sales of the iPhone helped the company report bumper earnings.

Sales of the iPhone 3G jumped 123 per cent year on year to 3.79 million units, as Apple made the iconic device available in more territories worldwide.

This helped boost the company’s net quarterly profit to $1.21bn, compared to earnings of $1.05bn in the same period last year. Revenues were also up to $8.16bn for the quarter, compared to $7.51bn a year ago.

How much money it made from those sales is a little harder to determine, however. Because of the “subscription based” model Apple uses to report revenues from the iPhone, due to the fact that it provides frequent software updates for the handset, the company spreads the revenue for the device over the products lifecycle, which is estimated to be 24 months.