Earnings: Cook's Final Act Mixed! Apple Q3 Revenue Beats, but Services and Greater China Disappoint, Shares Drop After Hours

Apple (AAPL-US) has released its final earnings report during Tim Cook's tenure as CEO. Driven by strong iPhone and Mac sales, the company's overall revenue for the previous quarter (fiscal Q3) exceeded expectations. However, service business performance disappointed Wall Street, and revenue growth in Greater China was underwhelming, causing the stock to decline in after-hours trading on Thursday (30th).

Apple had just reclaimed the title of the world's most valuable publicly traded company from Nvidia (NVDA-US), but after the earnings release, its after-hours share price opened high and then fell, dropping as much as 4.95%. The stock closed slightly lower on Thursday, down 1.41% to $333.43 per share, and had gained over 22% year-to-date through Thursday's close.

Fiscal Year 2026 Q3 (ended June 27) Earnings Key Figures vs. Analyst Expectations

EPS: $2.02 vs. $1.89 (forecast excluding tariff refund) Revenue: $109.42 billion (up 16.4% YoY) vs. $108.65 billion Gross Margin: 50.1% vs. 47.9% (forecast excluding tariff refund) Cash: $146.52 billion

Performance by Product Segment vs. Analyst Consensus

iPhone Revenue: $54.25 billion (up 21.7% YoY) vs. $53.86 billion Mac Revenue: $10.35 billion (up 28.7% YoY) vs. $8.74 billion iPad Revenue: $6.19 billion (down 5.9% YoY) vs. $6.92 billion Wearables, Home and Accessories: $7.88 billion (up 6.5% YoY) vs. $7.82 billion Services Revenue: $30.74 billion (up 12.1% YoY) vs. $31.22 billion

Regional Sales

Americas: $45.78 billion (up 11% YoY) Europe: $29.4 billion (up 22% YoY) Greater China: $18.82 billion (up 22% YoY) vs. $19.58 billion Japan: $6.55 billion (up 13.4% YoY) Other Asia-Pacific: $8.87 billion (up 15.6% YoY)

Apple's net profit rose from $24.43 billion in the same quarter last year to $29.79 billion, equating to $2.02 per share. Of this, 11 cents came from tariff refunds under the Trump administration. Even excluding this, the result surpassed analyst expectations.

Cook said in a press release: "Today, Apple is proud to announce our strongest June quarter ever, with double-digit growth in iPhone, Mac, and services revenue, and growth across all geographic segments. At WWDC26, we are excited to unveil the new Siri AI, along with Apple's latest software innovations and important child safety features."

Apple's performance was mixed across divisions. iPhone achieved its best-ever performance for the period, while Mac delivered results far exceeding market expectations and crossed the $10 billion quarterly revenue threshold. Incoming CEO John Ternus has led the development of new Mac products, including the Neo series, in recent years, making this a significant milestone as he prepares to begin his CEO tenure.

However, services, iPad, and wearables missed market expectations. iPad revenue declined, which Cook attributed to the launch of the budget A16 iPad in the same quarter last year.

Apple is currently facing a global memory shortage crisis. Cook recently described the supply crunch as a "100-year flood," and amid fierce competition for chip manufacturing capacity, the company has been forced to raise prices for Mac and iPad.

In an interview with Reuters, Cook said Apple's main supply bottleneck in the quarter was the shortage of advanced chip manufacturing technology used to produce Apple Silicon chips, with Mac product lines particularly affected. However, thanks to strong demand for the entry-level MacBook Neo and high-end MacBook Pro, Mac sales still grew 29% year-on-year despite price increases.

Apple has not yet announced iPhone price hikes, but many analysts expect prices could rise as early as this year.

Meanwhile, Apple is preparing to launch a redesigned Siri using Google (GOOGL-US) technology in September, alongside new iPhones. As investors worry Apple has fallen behind competitors in the artificial intelligence (AI) race, this will be a critical test.

Nonetheless, Apple's revenue grew 16.4% last quarter, marking the third consecutive quarter of over 15% growth. This also falls within Apple's previously guided 14-17% forecast range.