First Look: Apple's new Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

At its "Back to the Mac" event, Apple emphasized the importance of its Mac business, despite the fact that its desktop and notebook computers now represent just 33% of the company's revenues.

Chief operations officer Tim Cook pointed out that the 13.7 million Macs Apple sold in the last financial year are now a $22 billion operation, having grown dramatically over the past several years even as Apple has itself grown even faster by adding iPods, iPhones and iPads into the product mix.

If Apple's Mac business were spun off, it would stand by itself as number 110 of the Fortune 500, Cook noted, joking "we have no plans to do that!" to laughter of the audience. Mac sales have tripled in the last five years, with installed base of Macs is now just short of 50 million users. Cook also pointed out that Mac sales grew by 27 percent over the past year, compared to the industry average of just 11 percent. "This didn't just start happening," Cook pointed out. Macs have outpaced the PC industry in each of the last 18 quarters, Cook said.