Apple just closed the book on one era and cracked open another. The company reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 revenue of $109.4 billion on July 30, a 16% jump from the same period a year ago, making it the final earnings report Tim Cook will deliver as chief executive before handing the reins to John Ternus on September 1.
Diluted earnings per share came in at $2.02, up 29% year-over-year.
What drove the numbers
The iPhone carried the quarter, as it almost always does. Revenue from the device climbed to $54.3 billion, a 22% year-over-year increase.
Services kept pace at $30.7 billion, up 12% year-over-year. That segment, which covers the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, and a growing constellation of subscription products, now generates roughly the equivalent of a Fortune 100 company’s annual revenue every single quarter.
Mac had a standout performance, reaching $10.35 billion, a 29% increase. iPad was the one soft spot, with revenue declining 5.9% to $6.19 billion.
The company’s active installed base now exceeds 2.5 billion devices globally.
Cook’s legacy and Ternus’s inbox
Tim Cook spent 15 years in the CEO chair, a tenure that transformed Apple from a company known primarily for computers and the iPod into the most valuable publicly traded business on the planet. Under his watch, the services segment grew from a rounding error into a business that rivals entire mid-cap tech companies on its own.
John Ternus, who currently leads Apple’s hardware engineering, will assume the chief executive role on September 1. Cook is moving to executive chairman, a title that keeps him connected to the company without running day-to-day operations.
What markets did react to was the forward guidance. Apple projected September-quarter revenue growth of 9% to 11%, a range that landed below what analysts had penciled in. The culprits cited were supply constraints on advanced chips and foreign exchange headwinds. Shares declined following the report.
Apple is not signaling a collapse in demand. It is signaling that producing enough of its most advanced products to meet demand may be harder than anticipated in the near term. Apple designs its own silicon but relies on third-party foundries to manufacture it, which means it is not immune to the same bottlenecks affecting competitors.
Apple generates a large share of its revenue outside the United States, and a stronger dollar makes those international earnings worth less when converted back.