Apple Computer Incorporated’s first quarter profit more than quadrupled as sales of iPod digital music players surged during the yearend holiday season.

Net income rose to $295 million, or 70 cents a share, in the period that ended in December, from $63 million, or 17 cents, a year earlier, Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple said in a statement. Sales rose to $3.49 billion from $2.01 billion, compared with the $3.18 billion expected by 19 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, said Tuesday that iPod shipments jumped more than sevenfold to 4.5 million units last quarter, for a total of more than 10 million. Mr. Jobs is trying to build on the music player’s popularity and win over customers who say Apple products are costly by releasing a low-priced iPod and the least expensive Macintosh in the machine’s 21-year history.

“The low-priced strategy is a good one,” said an analyst at FTN Midwest Research Securities in Cleveland, William Fearnley. He rates the shares “neutral.” “The clear idea is to get people using Apple products. I believe that once they start to use it they will not go back.”

In the current quarter, which ends in March, Sales will be $2.9 billion and profit 40 cents a share, Apple said. Analysts had expected 33 cents on sales of $2.74 billion.

The company’s shares rose 90 cents to $65.46 in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. They rose more than threefold last year, making the company the second-best performer on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Apple benefited from climbing demand for consumer electronics during the November-December holiday shopping season. The company on Tuesday introduced the iPod shuffle to appeal to customers who find Apple’s larger iPods, which sell for $249 to $599, too costly, Mr. Jobs said Tuesday at the Macworld Expo conference in San Francisco.