Apple Computer Inc. easily topped Wall Street's income forecast for the third quarter with a profit increase of about 48%, largely supported by the continued popularity of its industry-leading iPod music player.

Company shares surged nearly 9%, or $ 4.65, in late-session trade Wednesday, to $ 58.75. It was up $ 1.20 in regular trading.

For its fiscal 3Q ended July 1, Apple's profit rose to $ 472 million, or 54 cents a share, up from $ 320 million or 37 cents per share in the equivalent period of 2005. That was 10 cents per share better than the mean forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Sales rose to $ 4.37 billion from $ 3.52 billion last year. That number was within the range of the Cupertino, California based company’s April forecast for quarterly revenue of $ 4.2 billion to $ 4.4 billion, but fell shy of the intend estimate of $ 4.4 billion among analysts.

The company headed by Steve Jobs transmitted 1.3 million Macintosh computers and 8.1 million iPods, the smashing leader among digital music players, during the quarter. The numbers represent a 12% growth in Mac sales and more than a 32% hike for iPods from the 3Q in 2005.

"iPod continued to earn a U.S. market share of over 75 percent and we are extremely excited about future iPod products in our pipeline," CEO Steve Jobs said.

The American computer technology company, Apple also said it anticipated sales of about $ 4.5 billion to $ 4.6 billion in the final quarter and earnings of between 46 cents and 48 cents a share.

However, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company's profit margins will be smaller in the last quarter because it intended an "aggressive" back-to-school marketing campaign.