SAN FRANCISCO: Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant at a Tennessee hospital and has "an excellent prognosis," the hospital that performed the operation confirmed.

Jobs, 54, received the transplant because he was "the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available", the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute said in a statement on its website.

"Mr Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis," the statement said. James Eason, program director at the institute and the hospital's chief of transplantation, added that the confirmation had come with Jobs' permission.