SHANGHAI, Apr. 26 -- Apple Inc. announced that its much-anticipated iPhone, a sleek device with a large screen that combines a phone, an iPod, a camera and instant messaging, will hit the market at the end of June, Sina.com reported today.

"We expect the iPhone to appear in the market by June, and we're much excited about the debut," Peter Oppenheimer, CEO of Apple Inc, told Reuters on a telephone interview yesterday.

Lacking the diminutive keypads found on other smart phones, Apple's iPhone has a single button and a 9-centimeter touch screen to navigate between playing songs and videos, displaying pictures, typing instant messages or making phone calls.

It will cost US$499 to US$599 when it debuts in the United States in June. Sales are expected to start in Europe in the fourth quarter and in Asia in 2008.

The device is 11.6-millimeters thick, has five hours of continuous talk time and 15 hours for playing music, and includes a camera.

It runs Apple's OS X operating system, has the Safari browser for Web access and e-mail functions that can handle graphics and work with external services.

The iPhone can connect to the Internet wirelessly via Wi-Fi and has Bluetooth, a short-range wireless technology that supports wireless headsets or links to devices like printers.

Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 US wireless network and a unit of AT&T Inc., has a multiyear, exclusive agreement to provide US service for the iPhone.

The Cupertino-based Apple Inc. anticipated that in 2008 Apple could sell 10 million iPhones, representing roughly 1 percent of the current annual mobile phone market of 1 billion units a year.

Last year, the consumer electronics market globally was worth US$145 billion.

Separately, Apple blew past Wall Street expectations yesterday, posting quarterly profits that jumped 88 percent, fueled by strong sales of its iPod players and Macintosh computers.

Shares of Apple soared more than 6 percent on the news, reaching above US$100 for the first time.

In the first three months of the year, the company said it earned US$770 million, or 87 cents per share, up from USS$410 million, or 47 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

It shipped 1.5 million Macintosh computers and more than 10.5 million iPods during the quarter, representing a 36 percent growth in Macs and 24 percent growth in the music players.

Sales from its market-leading iPods and other music-related products accounted for 44 percent of the quarter's total revenue.