Apple has beaten Wall Street expectations in its first earnings report under new chief executive John Ternus, as early demand for the iPhone 18 Pro and higher prices helped offset surging memory-chip costs.
The company reported fiscal fourth-quarter sales of $114.48 billion, above analyst estimates of $113.39 billion, according to LSEG data. Profit was $2.10 per share, ahead of estimates of $1.99, even after excluding five cents per share from tariff refunds. Shares nevertheless fell roughly 1% in volatile after-hours trading following the release.
The iPhone remained the engine of the beat. Fourth-quarter iPhone sales reached $57.58 billion, above estimates of $56.54 billion, driven by early demand for the iPhone 18 Pro lineup. Those figures cover only nine days of iPhone 18 Pro sales, and do not include sales of Apple’s first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, which went on sale on 23 October and will instead feed into the Christmas quarter.
Price rises also did heavy lifting. As it launched the new Pro models, Apple raised the price of iPhone 17 models by $100 and increased some MacBook prices, softening the blow of memory costs that former chief executive Tim Cook had likened to a 100-year flood. Ternus told Reuters that higher memory costs compared with the June quarter were partly offset by inventory benefits and lower costs on some other components, adding that the price increases provided some offset. Gross margin came in at 47.9%, above estimates of 47.5%.
Elsewhere, Mac sales of $10.79 billion beat estimates of $9.61 billion, helped by enthusiasm among technology enthusiasts for Macs as a platform for running AI agents. Services revenue of $31.57 billion was essentially in line with estimates of $31.58 billion. By contrast, iPad sales of $6.23 billion and wearables sales of $8.30 billion both fell short of estimates of $6.70 billion and $9.06 billion respectively.
Much attention now turns to the iPhone Duo. The foldable sold out within hours online and drew queues at Apple stores last month, but has also faced customer reports of cracked screens. Ternus said only a very small percentage of units had been returned for display issues and that Apple is replacing them. Supply, however, remains tight, with no timeline for when it will catch up with demand.
“Duo is constrained as of today,” Ternus said. “The ramp is going well, and we’re working hard to get it to as many customers as quickly as possible, but at this point, we’re not able to predict when supply and demand will be in balance.”
The results mark a first earnings test for Ternus, who took over from Cook in September. Under him, Apple is spacing out its iPhone launches across the year — Pro and Duo models this year, with other models expected next year — and has released a string of new non-iPhone products for the holiday quarter, including its first touchscreen laptops and its first smart-home hub. The aim, analysts say, is to smooth out a revenue cycle that for decades peaked with holiday iPhone sales and faded by late summer.
Ternus also pointed to momentum in artificial intelligence, saying the company’s rebuilt Siri is now fielding 2.5 billion requests a day. “Now we have the Siri that we always wanted, which we really built from the ground up,” he said.
Note: the featured image is a file photo of an Apple Store in Simi Valley, California, in 2007, not a photograph of Monday’s earnings announcement.
Sources: Reuters, “Apple results beat Wall Street expectations on strong iPhone sales”, 2 November 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/apple-results-beat-wall-street-expectations-on-strong-iphone-sales-2026-11-02/
