Analysts had predicted Apple’s revenue for the three month period ending December 27th 2008 to be US$9.75 billion, though it’s now revealed those revenues rose to a staggering US$10.2 billion.

This marks the first time Apple has crossed into quarterly US$10 billion revenue figure, despite the rest of the technology industry struggling to keep its head above the economic meltdown.

Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer was careful to put the income figures in proportion, however, and noted that gross margins were also increased thanks to favourable prices for components such as DRAM, flash memory and LCD displays.

But that shouldn’t detract from the fact that Apple sold a staggering 22 million iPods and 4.3 million iPhones during this quarter - also well above analysts’ predictions.

There was also mention of a music sales spike on Christmas Day, which ties in well with the sale of so many handheld devices that were clearly one of the hottest gifts of the commercial season.

The news comes only a matter of days after Apple’s share prices fell in response to the news of Steve Jobs’s leave of absence, due to health issues, though figures of this magnitude are likely to restore any financial damage, and then some.

Via ZDnet.