Hello, everyone, it’s John: Apple’s Q4 2026 earnings call transcript

For the first time as CEO, John Ternus joined CFO Kevan Parekh for the company’s quarterly earnings call, where they bend the ear of a bunch of financial-industry analysts to detail the quarter gone by and give a peek at what’s to come. This is Six Colors’s in-progress transcript of the call for November 2, 2026. John Ternus’s opening remarks Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us. It’s a privilege to be with you for the first time as Apple CEO. I’m honored to represent our teams and the work they do every day. Today Apple is pleased to report a 114.5 billion dollars in revenue, up 12% from a year ago and a September quarter record. These results helped Apple achieve its best-ever fiscal year for revenue and EPS. This is an amazing time at Apple. We just completed one of the most prolific launch periods in our history. It’s been a remarkable time for innovation across all of our categories. One of the greatest testaments to that is the all-new iPhone Duo, the most transformational iPhone since the original. We’re also incredibly excited about iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, which take massive leaps forward on camera, battery life, and performance—features that our users care deeply about. Meanwhile, touch has arrived on Mac for the first time with the all-new MacBook Pro. And we were excited to announce the new iMac and 14-inch MacBook Pro. The all-new iPad mini features a stunning new OLED display and brings a super thin design to the smallest member of the iPad family. Apple Watch now offers users the clearest window yet into their heart health. We introduced AirPods 5, which feature industry-leading active noise cancellation in an open-ear design. And we’ve laid the foundation for an even more intelligent smart home with the all-new HomeView, Apple TV 4k, and HomePod mini. On top of it all, we’re unlocking more powerful AI experiences across our lineup, including with the all-new Siri AI, a profoundly capable and deeply personal assistant seamlessly integrated across our platforms. And like everything we make, Siri AI is built with essential privacy protections so no one can access users’ data, not even Apple. We launched Siri AI in beta for US English users in September and expanded to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish in October. We’re really excited to have rolled all these innovations out, and there’s still so much more we plan to do. I’m feeling great about the opportunities ahead for Apple, from our product roadmap and broad range of services to promising areas like health, emerging markets, enterprise, and education. As one example, we recently secured our biggest education deal ever for Mac, with the Department of Education in the Philippines. They’re going to deploy 170,000 MacBook Neos to teachers and staff. Opportunities like this bring more users into our ecosystem and help fuel growth across our business. Apple is the greatest company in the world. We’ve assembled an extraordinary collection of talent—the best engineers, designers, developers, and experts in every corner of our business from our supply chain to our stores. Every day we bring the right people together with the best ideas to build products and services that change lives, guided by a foundational set of values and a belief that the best technology should make a better world. We do that by making products that are powerful and intuitive and meet Apple’s uncompromising standards for quality, performance, design, and durability. That’s the Apple experience customers love. And with our latest lineup, people have even more reasons than ever to upgrade or switch to an Apple product. At the same time, Apple services amplify the experience of every device, helping people work, play, listen, watch, and stay connected to the world around them. I’m delighted with where our services business is today and where it’s going, and with an installed base of more than 2.5 billion active devices, I’m looking forward to expanding our offerings and improving the lives of users around the world. We see tremendous opportunity in AI as well. Siri AI marks a new chapter in AI at Apple. It is a completely re-imagined assistant that is powerful, personal, private, and deeply relevant to our users’ daily lives. Siri AI picks up what’s relevant to our users, understands what’s on their screen, and holds a natural conversation. All to help them with the things they do every day. It’s the Siri we’ve always wanted. We are very proud. pleased with the reviews and feedback we’ve received and we’re so excited that more and more users are getting to experience it. iPhone remains at the center of our opportunity as the intelligent personal hub. It’s always with you and understands your personal context from your messages to your photos, notes, and apps to deliver powerful intelligence right when you need it. Then there’s Mac, which is having an AI moment all its own. Mac is what brought me to Apple, and through the years, it has opened a world of possibilities. More than 40 years after the first Mac, the category is having its biggest moment yet, with every Mac in our latest lineup a powerful platform for AI. Mac mini and Mac studio in particular are pushing the boundaries of local private AI, giving users the ability to do things once considered impossible. From Mac to iPhone to iPad, we are proud that our products are the best platforms in the industry for AI for both first-party and third-party applications, and we’re excited about the opportunities that creates. Ultimately, everything we do at Apple is for our users. The success of every innovation is best measured by its impact on people’s lives. And that’s what drives us to keep building great products and to get them into the hands of people all around the world. Now let’s take a deeper dive into our results for the quarter. As I mentioned earlier, we had an excellent quarter at Apple. In addition to September quarter and fiscal year records in total company revenue, iPhone set a September quarter revenue record, capping its best fiscal year ever. Services achieved an all-time record during the quarter to close out our best year ever there too. We grew in the vast majority of markets we tracked. setting September quarter records in the Americas, Europe, Greater China, and the rest of Asia-Pacific. We also set September quarter revenue records in both developed and emerging markets, in addition to an all-time record in India. Turning to our lineup, iPhone revenue was $57.6 billion for the September quarter, up 17% from a year ago despite supply constraints and foreign exchange headwinds. We grew strong double digits in the U.S. and greater China to achieve September quarter revenue records. We also set a September quarter record for upgraders worldwide as well as in the U.S., China mainland, and India, helping to deliver our best fiscal year ever for upgraders globally. At the launch in September, we introduced the all-new iPhone Duo. From the very beginning, we knew what we wanted to create: a foldable form factor with a larger display that feels as natural and intuitive as iPad. We designed the hardware and software together to make it unmistakably iPhone, while enabling entirely new ways to use it. The result is a series of remarkable innovations that we believe will redefine what a foldable phone can be. We’re so proud of what our teams have built. Developers have been quickly adapting to this new form factor, and we’re excited to see more and more apps optimized for iPhone Duo. We’ve been thrilled with the early response from reviewers and customers and we are working hard to get iPhone Duo into customers hands as quickly as we can. We have also been thrilled with the response to iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. It’s easy to see why customers are embracing them. Our latest models feature a dramatically improved camera system with breakthrough upgrades like variable aperture and all-new photographic styles. The A20 Pro and next-generation vapor chamber together deliver the highest sustained performance in iPhone history. An iPhone 18 Pro Max delivers the biggest increase in battery life ever on an iPhone. A20 Pro also features a new dual 16-core neural engine accelerating on-device AI and computational photography. Turning to Mac, revenue was $10.8 billion, up 24% from a year ago despite supply constraints. We had double-digit growth in the majority of markets we track, and particularly strong performance in our emerging markets, where we set a September quarter revenue record. We also set a September quarter record for customers new to the Mac. According to IDC, we gained share globally during the quarter and for the full fiscal year, and we have never sold more Macs in a fiscal year than we did this time, which is a truly remarkable testament to these incredible products. Last week, we introduced a whole new way for people to experience Mac. The all-new MacBook Pro with ProLED XDR brings touch to the Mac for the first time. It also boasts the best Pro laptop display we have ever shipped, plus all-day battery and our most immersive laptop audio, and it all comes together in a thinner and lighter design. We also brought the power of M6 to the new 14-inch MacBook Pro and the new iMac. This latest generation of Apple Silicon includes the world’s fastest CPU core to speed up everyday tasks, in addition to a dual 16-core neural engine to drive private, on-device AI tasks. Now turning to iPad, where revenue was $6.2 billion for the September quarter. Last week, we introduced the all-new iPad Mini with an amazing new OLED display, super thin design, and the power of A20 Pro. With the newest edition, our iPad lineup is more capable and versatile than ever before. Anywhere our users go, there’s a place for iPad, like a classroom where it helps students explore the world in amazing ways, or a design studio, giving artists and creatives an expansive canvas to explore their ideas. In Wearables, Home, and Accessories, revenue was $8.3 billion for the September quarter. Apple Watch makes the simple act of wearing a watch a powerful way to help take care of your health. We were thrilled to introduce our all-new Health Sensing System to help our users get the most out of health tracking. Paired with the S11 chip, Apple’s most powerful wearable chip, the health sensing system delivers the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. We were also happy to unveil new features like health age and readiness, which will tell you when to push forward or hold back, as well as the all-new Health app redesign. And we’re excited for Audio Intelligence, which will be coming in a future software update and will help you remember moments you might otherwise miss. Apple Watch Series 12 brings it all together in a beautifully light design, while Apple Watch Ultra 4 goes further with longer battery life compared to the previous generation and the most accurate on-device GPS in a sports watch. Meanwhile, AirPods 5 offers best-in-class open-ear active noise cancellation at an incredible price while improving sound quality, battery life, and durability. With iPhone and Apple intelligence, including Siri AI, AirPods allow users to do remarkable things like connect with someone who’s speaking another language with live translation, or get answers with broad world knowledge entirely hands-free. And just a few weeks ago, we introduced a whole new generation of hardware for the home. That includes Apple HomeView, which was designed to be central to the home and personal to everyone in it, bringing entertainment, connection, and home management together in one place. We announced this alongside the new Apple TV 4K, now smarter with Apple Intelligence, the all-new HomePod Mini, and Apple Home Collection, a new program that extends Apple Home beyond our own products through deep collaboration with key partners. All of it, as always, is built on Apple’s approach to privacy. Now, let’s turn to services. Revenue was $31.6 billion, up 10% from a year ago and an all-time record. We saw double-digit growth in the majority of markets that we track, and we set all-time revenue records in the Americas and Europe, as well as a September quarter record in the rest of Asia-Pacific. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards were a night to remember for Apple TV, with our shows earning more awards than any other network. Widow’s Bay, the show of the summer, became the most awarded comedy ever in a single year with 14 wins. We’re very excited about our programming, from fan favorites like Slow Horses and Ted Lasso to the upcoming film, “Being Human.” To date, Apple TV productions have earned more than 900 wins and over 3,800 nominations. Turning to Apple Pay, we recently launched in India with Access Bank, bringing a seamless, safe, and secure way to pay in one of the biggest markets in the world. Today, Apple Pay is available in over 90 markets, giving customers around the world peace of mind built into every transaction. Apple Music was created to bring artists and fans closer together, and with the opening of Apple Music Hall, we have a beautiful new venue for intimate shows that bring them even closer. To celebrate the opening of the site in London, we hosted an unforgettable performance by Elton John. People love Apple products and services for the countless ways they make life easier, more enjoyable, and just plain better. They also count on Apple to create technology responsibly, built the right way, not the easy way. That means building products with even more recycled content to take less from the earth, and with even better durability so they last longer. It means developing intelligent capabilities like sound recognition on Apple Watch to alert users who are deaf or hard of hearing to what’s happening around them. It means designing privacy protections like on-device processing, so personal data stays on a user’s device. And it means introducing new child safety features to make it easier for parents to manage when and how their kids can use their devices. We’re also pleased to be doing more and more manufacturing in the United States. Through our American Manufacturing Program, we’re deepening partnerships with suppliers across the country, including Perryman, a titanium producer now supplying iPhone Duo, and Qnity Electronics, which is producing the camera technology behind iPhone 18 Pro’s new variable aperture system. Nearly 100 components in our newest iPhones come from American companies in more than a dozen states. All told, Apple supports more than 450,000 American jobs with thousands of suppliers and partners across all 50 states. It’s all part of our $600 billion four-year commitment to U.S. innovation and advanced manufacturing. I am proud of what we’ve accomplished this quarter and I’m excited for what’s ahead. We have everything we need to be extraordinarily successful, and with this team, this vision, this mission and these values, I have no doubt that we will. With that I’ll hand it over to Kevan. [To be continued…] If you appreciate articles like this one, support us by becoming a Six Colors subscriber. Subscribers get access to an exclusive podcast, members-only stories, and a special community.