Whether you love Apple and its products or hate them – or somewhere in between – you have to admit that the company’s growth and success in recent years has been amazing by pretty much any standard. When you consider that Apple was basically a dead man walking in 1996 when Steve Jobs returned to the company he helped found, Apple’s success story becomes all the more impressive.

Today, Apple is set to release its earnings report for the second quarter of the 2012 fiscal year. Last quarter’s report, released in January, revealed that the final three months of 2011 (the first quarter of their 2012 fiscal year) was the best quarter in Apple’s history. The company generated $46.33 billion in revenue, more than double that of Microsoft. In fact, the iPhone by itself generated more money than Microsoft’s entire business.

Of course, last quarter had the iPhone 4S launch, which happened in October and was huge. But this quarter has seen the launch of the new iPad, and with Apple selling three million iPads in the first four days, it’s not hard to guess that Apple’s second quarter will be as big as their first.

Of course, tossing around the kinds of numbers that companies release in their earnings reports and press releases and whatnot can get a bit dizzying if you’re not familiar with the business lingo, or if you don’t have much of a head for numbers. If you’re one of those people, this handy infographic will help put Apple’s ginormous-ness in perspective for you. Check it out below, then let us know what you think in the comments.

From: Best Computer Science Degrees