Apple beats Q3, stock drops 8% on soft guidance
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- Apple reported fiscal Q3 sales of $109.42B (up 16.4%) versus the $108.65B estimate, with EPS of $2.02 — including 11 cents from U.S. tariff refunds — clearing the $1.89 Wall Street estimate.
- iPhone revenue jumped 21.7% to $54.25B, Apple's best-ever third quarter for the product, as customers raced to buy ahead of expected fall price hikes tied to a global memory-chip crunch.
- Mac sales surged 28.7% to $10.35B, well above the $8.74B estimate, driven by the entry-level MacBook Neo and high-end MacBook Pro despite price increases.
- CEO Tim Cook told Reuters the main supply constraint was an industry-wide advanced chipmaking bottleneck, particularly acute for the Mac lineup.
- Shares fell 8% despite the beats as investors focused on weaker forward guidance.
- Apple ended its longtime goal of returning all cash to shareholders, signaling potential upcoming capital needs as AI-driven supply-chain spending strains component supply.
- Greater China revenue rose 22.4% to $18.82B, with growth reported across every region.
Why it matters: The 8% post-earnings drop shows investors care more about forward guidance than today's beats, and Apple's quiet end to its full-cash-return policy hints at looming capital demands tied to AI-related supply-chain pressures that may be funded without share buybacks as a backstop.
