New York, April 30, 2026, 17:10 EDT
- Apple topped Wall Street estimates on both revenue and profit this quarter and signed off on a fresh $100 billion share buyback.
- Shares slipped roughly 1% in after-hours trading, with iPhone sales coming in below forecasts and chip supplies remaining constrained.
- Apple’s hardware push is giving investors something to consider, even as uncertainty swirls around its AI story and what the eventual transition from Tim Cook to John Ternus might mean.
Apple’s stock dipped after hours on Thursday, despite the company topping quarterly expectations and boosting its buyback program. Investors zeroed in on a modest iPhone shortfall and new signals that supply bottlenecks are dragging on flagship sales. Earlier, the shares finished the day up $0.83 at $271.35.
The timing of the report is crucial, arriving only days after Apple announced Cook will step up as executive chairman and Ternus, currently hardware chief, is set to take over as CEO on September 1. Suddenly, earnings have become a proving ground for Ternus—he’ll need to show he can sustain the iPhone juggernaut and offer investors a sharper roadmap for artificial intelligence.
Apple faces comparison to rivals making bigger AI bets. Alphabet climbed Thursday off solid cloud numbers. Meta and Microsoft, though, both slipped—investors balked at AI spending, pressing for evidence those investments will pay off.
Apple turned in $111.2 billion in revenue for its fiscal second quarter, a 17% jump year-over-year, while diluted EPS landed at $2.01—up 22%. That topped analyst forecasts: they were looking for $109.66 billion in revenue and $1.95 a share, LSEG figures cited by Reuters show.
iPhone sales missed the mark, pulling in $56.99 billion—slightly under the $57.21 billion analysts had targeted, according to Reuters. CEO Tim Cook described demand as “off the charts” in comments to Reuters, though he flagged tight supply for the advanced chips behind the iPhone 17 series, citing “less flexibility” in the supply chain. Reuters
Apple’s Mac division brought in $8.4 billion—topping the $8.02 billion estimate—driven in part by solid demand for the MacBook Neo, the budget-friendly model tied to Ternus. Services revenue, including the App Store and subscriptions, was $30.98 billion, outpacing projections. Over in Greater China, sales climbed to $20.5 billion, again ahead of what analysts were looking for.
Apple reported a gross margin of 49.27%, topping analyst expectations for 48.38%. That margin points to the company’s ability to wield pricing power and leverage bulk buying, offsetting cost pressures from pricier memory chips and processors. The supply for those components hasn’t loosened up.
The board bumped the quarterly dividend to 27 cents a share—a 4% increase—and signed off on as much as $100 billion more for share buybacks. Shrinking the share count can give earnings per share a boost, but buybacks alone won’t address any issues with products or growth.
Apple still faces scrutiny over its AI strategy. Unlike some competitors throwing tens of billions at AI infrastructure every quarter, Apple’s approach is less aggressive on that front, though R&D spending jumped 33.5% to $11.42 billion for the quarter. CEO Tim Cook told Reuters the company was “all in” on AI, also confirming a more personalized Siri would arrive this year. Reuters
Apple’s apparent move to tap Google’s tech for Siri signals the company is open to outside AI partners, analyst Jacob Bourne at eMarketer noted. Bourne pointed out that investors are looking to John Ternus to walk the line between Apple’s careful approach to AI and mounting calls to deliver a new consumer device fit for the AI age.
Leadership questions aren’t leaving the stage just yet. “The AI story remains one up in the air,” Jay Woods, chief market strategist at Freedom Capital Markets, remarked to Reuters ahead of the report. He pointed out that investors are eyeing how the shakeup at the top might steer product innovation, capital deployment and Apple’s approach to AI in its next phase. Reuters
Strong numbers don’t mean Apple’s out of the woods. If chip bottlenecks tighten further, iPhone sales could hit a ceiling short-term. Introducing a cheaper MacBook might dent the company’s high-end image if customers start skipping pricier options. Services, for their part, are still under the regulatory microscope in Europe and beyond. With a market value near $4 trillion, Apple gives investors little patience for growth slip-ups.
