Apple earnings: revenue beats expectations on iPhone, but shares fall on margins

Update, November 3, 2026: we added Apple’s official release to the sources (revenue, earnings per share, margin and dividend match); we removed the paragraphs on AI strategy, new iPads in 2027 and S&P 500 earnings, which were unrelated to the results, and the questions that repeated the text.

Apple’s quarterly earnings, the last of the big tech companies in this round, beat Wall Street expectations with revenue of $114.5 billion, up 12% on the year, its best September quarter ever according to the company’s release. The iPhone is still driving the results, and it beat analysts’ estimates.¹²³ The stock nonetheless reacted badly after the markets closed: the margin forecast for the holiday quarter turned out weaker than expected.²³

What are the results of Apple’s quarterly earnings?

In the fourth fiscal quarter, which ended on September 26, 2026, Apple recorded revenue of $114.5 billion. The LSEG consensus, meaning the average of analysts’ estimates gathered by the financial group, stood at $113.39 billion.² Diluted earnings per share rose 14% to $2.10, against the $1.99 the market expected. Gross margin, the share of revenue left after production costs, was 47.9%, slightly above forecasts.²³ About one percentage point of that margin comes from tariff refunds, which also added 5 cents to earnings per share. The quarter’s net income was $30,711 million, an improvement of 11.8%.²⁴ According to chief financial officer Kevan Parekh, operations generated $28 billion in cash in the quarter, and the same amount was returned to shareholders through capital returns. The dividend approved by the board is $0.27 per share and will be paid on November 16.²

What is a fiscal year, and why does Apple close in September?

The fiscal year is the period over which the company builds its financial statements, and it does not necessarily coincide with the calendar year. Apple’s ended in September: the fourth fiscal quarter of 2025-2026 ended on September 26.²⁴ The quarterly report is the account of results that listed companies publish every three months. This is the last of the big tech companies on the calendar, while Nvidia will report later.² For the full fiscal year, revenue reached $478,834 million, up 15%. Net income was $132,175 million, 18% more than the previous year. The new chief executive John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook in September, spoke of the best fiscal year ever.²⁴

How much does the iPhone weigh on Apple’s accounts?

In the quarter, iPhone revenue grew 17.5% to $57.56 billion, about a billion above the average estimate. The iPhone remains the group’s most important product, by a wide margin.³ Over the fiscal year, iPhone sales reached $254,098 million, up 21.2%, which is more than half of total revenue. The Mac rose 12.5% to $37,929 million, while the iPad and the division that includes Apple Watch and AirPods were essentially flat, each down 0.3%.⁴ Services, which include subscriptions, app fees and payments, reached $123,301 million, with annual growth of 13%. The business daily that followed the results notes, however, that growth in this high-margin division continues to slow.²⁴ By geographic area, China stands out, where annual sales rose 28% to $82,378 million. In Europe growth was 14.9%, in the Americas 11% and in Japan 7.7%.⁴

Why did Apple’s stock fall after the earnings?

The reason is the forecast for the current quarter, the holiday one. Apple expects a gross margin between 45% and 46%, a little below analysts’ expectations and far from the above-50% level of the spring.³ Ternus described the rise in memory chip costs as unprecedented and said it is continuing.³ On revenue, by contrast, the guidance is better than estimates: Apple expects growth of between seven and ten percent. In after-hours trading the stock lost about three percentage points.³ The day after the results, European markets opened lower, with Milan down 1.2%, while fears over the sustainability of investment in artificial intelligence were already weighing on the Nasdaq. Investing.com links the decline in European indexes to Apple’s warning on margins.⁵⁶

What is happening with the iPhone Duo?

The iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable, does not yet appear in the results: the quarter closed before it went on sale. Pre-orders, opened on October 16, sold out in less than an hour in France, with deliveries pushed back to the end of January. It reached stores on October 23, where stock is selling out quickly.⁷ Ternus described it as supply-constrained and admitted that Apple cannot predict when demand and supply will balance. In France the price exceeds two thousand euros and reaches nearly four thousand for the 2 TB version. In the United States it starts just under two thousand dollars and pre-orders ended in three hours.⁷ This year only two iPhone lines are new: the 18 Pro and the Duo. The cheaper models, according to press rumors, will arrive next year.³

This article was written by artificial intelligence from the sources cited, without human review. Automatic newsroom by Redazia.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Apple reports fourth quarter results (Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1), Apple / SEC, 2026-10-29 ↩

2. Apple, attesa per la trimestrale che fa conto sull’iPhone, Il Sole 24 ORE, 2026-11-02 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

3. Teure Speicherchips und iPhone Duo: Apple hat vor Weihnachten nicht nur gute Nachrichten, t3n, 2026-11-03 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

4. Apple gana un 18% más al cierre de su año fiscal con una cifra de ingresos récord gracias al iPhone, El Mundo, 2026-11-02 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

5. Borse in rosso, tornano le vendite sul Tech, RaiNews, 2026-11-03 ↩

6. European shares slide as Apple margin warning trigger global tech rout, Investing.com, 2026-11-03 ↩

7. iPhone Duo : Apple admet un problème de stock, la situation est plus critique qu’on ne l’imaginait, 01net, 2026-11-03 ↩ ↩²