Announcing the financial results for the first quarter of 2010, Apple reported revenue of US$15.68 billion, an all-time quarterly high for the company and pushing annual revenue to more than US$50 billion.

Ending on December 26th, the revenue is compared to the US$11.88 billion revenue posted in the first quarter of last year. Also up from a year ago was gross margin, now at 40.9% up from 37.9% a year ago. International sales accounted for 58% of the quarter’s revenue.

“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a (US)$50+ billion company,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in a press release.

He added: “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

Computer sales were up 33% from last year, with Apple selling 3.36 million Macs.

Apple has also said that approximately 3 billion apps have been downloaded from the Apple store.

In a live conference web call about Apple’s financial results, the company said that Asia Pacific was the highest performing region in terms of growth, while iPhone use in Asia Pacific grew 500%.