“Apple’s international sales are simply on fire”

So wrote the Motley Fool‘s Erik Bleeker Monday in a piece assessing Apple’s (AAPL) overseas demand.

It is, as he puts it, exploding.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has been following COO Tim Cook’s Q&As with analysts, where he’s been highlighting Apple’s growth in the Japanese and Asia Pacific markets. But Bleeker does a good job summarizing the data in charts and tables.

In 2005, as the pie chart at right shows, 59% of Apple’s sales came from the U.S. Five years later, the U.S. share had shrunk to 44%, and 56% of sales were coming from overseas.

Moreover, Apple’s international sales are accelerating. As Bleeker reports, “international revenue soared 78% in fiscal 2010, versus a relatively ‘sluggish’ 28% sales-growth rate at home.”

It’s when Bleeker looks at the rate at which Apple’s profits are growing in its various markets that the most striking differences emerge.

While Apple’s sales were experiencing triple digit percentage gains overseas, its profits were growing between 1,500% and 3,000%. See below.