Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) just crushed their earnings and revenues for what typically is the slow first quarter. Usually the first quarter is met with a yawn. I have written three posts in the last month that this first quarter would be different, and it was. The street was looking for earnings per share of $.63 -- .66 and Apple reported $.87 on revenues of $5.26 billion, 100 million more than estimates.

What tipped me off is Wall Street analysts usually leave big tech names alone during the first quarter and maybe do a quiet, back-of-the -envelope mid-quarter update. Apple just had too much momentum exiting the December 2006 quarter and the outlook was just getting too big. So four firms put out "real" updates and began to hint of better-than-expected first quarter numbers. I have been recommending Apple to my web site Insider Insights Club Members since last September at $66, when the site opened. But I have been on this story for three years plus and recommending the shares to my old institutional clients since $12.

It is just beginning and is getting bigger.

Apple sold 10.5 million iPods in the "slow" first quarter. It has now sold over 100 million iPod's since they first came out in late 2002. The global market share is 70%, and the MARKET IS STILL UNDER PENETRATED!! iPod is not a mature story or product--it is still in the 3rd inning of the ball game. Couple that with iPhone launching in June and the two legs of growth there alone could run five solid years.

Now throw in 1.5 million Macs sold in the quarter and that entire upgrade cycle is just beginning. Toss in the enormous amounts of software and peripheral sales involved -- and there's your third leg of mega-growth.The fourth leg is a bit more convoluted as it has a lot of moving parts: the retail Apple stores, increased CPU market share and the increased effort to penetrate the stubborn enterprise side.

Apple reported better than expected margins, both gross and operating. It has been an operating-margin expansion story, as well as a product story. The stock option cloud slightly remains as former executives are trying to implicate Steven Jobs, the CEO. The board of directors has issued a statement to the contrary. That's a huge step for any board as new liability laws would make members personally responsible. The investigation by the board has been completed and they have stated their findings: Steven Jobs is clean.

All that aside, Apple has the opportunity these next five years to become a verifiable monster. The market cap, currently at $82 billion (stock up $7 in after market trading), could grow to over $200 billion these next five years.

As I said, It's just beginning...

Georges Yared is the CIO of Yared Investment Research. For more growth stock ideas please visit the web site.