Apple Posts Record September-Quarter Revenue of $114.5 Billion in New CEO Ternus's First Report, Despite Price Hikes and Soaring Memory Costs
Revenue rose 12% and earnings per share 14%, both above estimates. Apple says tariff refunds added about a point to its gross margin. The company faces surging chip prices and a foldable iPhone it cannot make fast enough.
Apple reported record revenue for the quarter ended in September on Monday, in the first earnings report under CEO John Ternus, Fox Business reports.
The numbers. Revenue rose 12% from a year earlier to $114.5 billion, and earnings per share rose 14% to $2.10. Both beat Wall Street estimates. For the full fiscal year, revenue rose 15% to $478.8 billion, Apple's best year ever. iPhone revenue grew 17% to $57.6 billion, and Mac revenue jumped 24% to $10.8 billion. Greater China revenue rose 21% to more than $17.5 billion, a September-quarter record, though it fell short of analysts' estimates there.
Prices and costs. Apple raised prices on many products, including Mac and iPad at the end of June and iPhone in September. Ternus said the increases helped offset higher memory costs, which he called "absolutely unprecedented." Fox cites a Wall Street Journal report that some flash-memory prices are up more than 500% from 2023 levels, driven in part by the AI buildout. Gross margin was 47.9%, broadly in line with expectations.
Tariff refunds. Fox reports that Apple also benefited from tariff refunds, which lifted gross margin by about one percentage point and added about 5 cents to quarterly earnings per share.
Supply limits. Apple's first foldable iPhone, the Duo, is in short supply, with some delivery estimates stretching into 2027. Ternus said the ramp is going well but did not say when supply will catch up. The quarter included only eight days of iPhone 18 Pro sales, and analysts have questioned whether it can match last year's upgrade cycle.
The market. Apple has added more than $1 trillion in market value since July, Fox reports, and first closed above $5 trillion on Oct. 14. Investors have rewarded its decision not to spend hundreds of billions on AI data centers. The stock trades at about 35 times expected earnings, which Fox calls historically elevated.
What we could not check. Figures are as reported by Fox Business from Apple's results and Ternus's interview. We have not read Apple's filing, and the memory-price figure is a secondhand citation.