Apple stock surged nearly 8% in early trading Wednesday to just under $118 a share, on a split-adjusted basis, after crushing analyst estimates across the board with its holiday quarter results. That gain effectively added about $50 billion to the company’s market cap overnight, and pushed it closer to the $700 billion mark.
The Cupertino, California, company posted revenue of $74.6 billion, far surpassing Wall Street estimates for revenue of $67.5 billion, and reported a profit of $18 billion, setting a new quarterly record not just for Apple for but for all global businesses.
Those stellar numbers were largely driven by growth in iPhone sales after the release of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices in late September 2014. Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates for sales of around 66 million iPhones.
If the iPhone sales figure wasn’t impressive enough, Apple also revealed that the average selling price (ASP) of the iPhone hit a new high of $687 in the quarter, perhaps due to the higher price tag for the 6 Plus and the subtle push to phones with more storage space.
Apple’s results seemed to leave many analysts almost speechless. “Stunning results,” Steve Milunovich at UBS wrote in an investor note via Fortune. “Seems like the whole world wants an iPhone.”