A day after Apple posted historic quarterly profits, the technology giant surpassed oil major ExxonMobil to briefly become the most valuable company in the world when its market value touched $419 billion.

During trading on Wednesday, the California company's shares were up by as much as 8 per cent, pushing its market value to $419 billion.

Exxon on the other hand saw its shares fall by two per cent.

Apple ended the day with its stock rising 6.3 per cent to $446.66 a share.

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The oil company however regained its numero uno position at the market's close.

Exxon Mobil's stock closed up four cents at $87.22 for a market capitalisation of $ 418 billion.

Apple closed the day's trading with a market cap of about $415 billion.

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Apple had first surpassed Exxon last August to become the most valuable US company but had then fallen back to second place.

In one of the most profitable quarters ever for any US company, Apple's net income more than doubled to $13.06 billion in the October-December quarter boosted by strong sales of its bestsellers iPhone, iPad and Macintosh computers.

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Apple said it had a net income of six billion dollars in the first quarter ended December 25, 2010.

The company registered a record revenue of $46.33billion during the last quarter of 2011 compared to $26.74 billion in the year-ago period.

"We are thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple's momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline," Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

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During the quarter, Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones, representing 128 per cent unit growth over the year-ago period.

It sold 15.43 million iPad units, more than double (111 per cent) of what it had sold a year earlier.

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Apple sold 5.2 million Macintosh computers, up 26 per cent from a year ago.

It has generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter.