The numbers Apple posted for its third fiscal quarter of 2026 read like a trophy wall: revenue up 16 percent to $109.4 billion, earnings per share of $2.02, and a gross margin that expanded from 46.5 percent to 50.1 percent year over year. The iPhone segment alone climbed 22 percent to $54.3 billion, while the Mac division surged 29 percent. Even the services business — long the investor favorite for its recurring revenue — grew 12 percent to $30.7 billion. Net income rose 27 percent to $29.8 billion.
None of that was enough to keep the stock from sliding as much as 8 percent in after-hours trading.
The market wasn’t punishing the past. It was pricing in the road ahead. Apple’s guidance for the fourth quarter called for revenue growth of just 9 to 11 percent, and management flagged a margin squeeze driven by rising memory-chip costs. The company conceded it can’t manufacture fast enough to meet demand, with inventories depleted and wait times stretching on products like the iPhone 17 and MacBook Neo. The M5 Mac Mini and Mac Studio have been pushed back. The global appetite for high-performance storage, fueled by the AI boom, has driven DRAM prices sharply higher — and Apple, which stuffs those components into every iPhone and Mac, is feeling the bite. Chinese memory maker Changxin Memory Technologies has reportedly rejected Apple’s request for price concessions, demanding instead the same terms Samsung and SK Hynix receive.
The stock now trades at €270.40, down 6.61 percent over the past week and roughly 10.40 percent below its 52-week high of €301.80, set in late July. A separate tally puts the weekly decline at 6.89 percent with the share price at €269.60 — either way, the slide accelerated after the earnings report, with Reuters recording a 7.35 percent drop by August 3. Year to date, the shares remain up a solid 16 percent, but the momentum has clearly stalled.
This is the environment John Ternus walks into on September 1, when he formally takes the CEO reins from Tim Cook. It’s a handoff that coincides not just with the margin pressure but with a broader question hanging over the company: Is the memory-chip shortage a temporary cost problem, or the beginning of a structural erosion in profitability? The analyst community is split down the middle. UBS reiterated its “Neutral” rating on August 5 with a $296 price target, pointing to flat App Store revenue growth in July after a 2 percent gain in June. Evercore ISI held its “Buy” stance a day earlier with a $365 target, citing the monetization potential of the new Siri interface. Price targets across the Street now range from $280 to $380 — a chasm that reflects just how uncertain the outlook has become.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Apple?
Legal battles add another layer of complexity. Apple is fighting OpenAI’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the company poached more than 400 former Apple engineers and stole trade secrets — OpenAI frames the departures as a failure of Apple’s management. Apple has also petitioned the US District Court in Northern California for a preliminary injunction to block the use of confidential information, and is taking the UK government to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal over demands for an encrypted backdoor into iCloud data. In Russia, the FAS antitrust authority has opened proceedings over alleged competition violations related to app pre-installation, with a potential fine of up to 4 billion rubles.
Institutional positioning offers no clear signal either. Several wealth managers — Resolute Wealth Strategies, Stillwater Private Wealth, Eaton Cambridge, and Lowe Brockenbrough — expanded their Apple holdings in the first quarter, some by more than 20 percent. Others, including Boston Common Asset Management, Liberty Square Wealth Partners, and Little House Capital, trimmed their positions. The split mirrors the broader uncertainty.
Apple has taken steps to soften the blow of rising component costs. A leasing program called “Apple Upgrade,” launched in partnership with Klarna, now offers monthly installment payments for iPhones, Macs, and iPads — a nod to affordability concerns as hardware prices creep upward. The next quarterly dividend of $0.27 per share goes ex-dividend on August 10, with payment on August 13.
All eyes now turn to September 9, when Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max at its annual product event — the first major launch under Ternus’s leadership. Rumors also persist of a foldable “iPhone Ultra” priced around $2,000, featuring an A20 Pro chip and a variable aperture, though the standard iPhone 18 may not arrive until spring 2027. Whether Ternus can deliver that product lineup while navigating the memory-chip storm will be his first — and most consequential — test.
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