Business#Price comparison#AI chips
Apple FY2026 Q4: revenue up 12% to $114.5B on record iPhone sales, but memory costs drag guidance below Street
Apple on Nov 2 reported FY26 Q4: revenue $114.5B (+12%), record iPhone revenue $57.58B even as shipments fell 4%; flash spend rose from $6B to ~$25B.
Apple reported fiscal fourth-quarter results after the US close on November 2, and the headline looked unbeatable: revenue of $114.5 billion for the quarter ended September 26, up 12% year over year, with net income of $30.7 billion and diluted EPS of $2.10 (up 14%), both ahead of Wall Street expectations. iPhone revenue of $57.58 billion set a September-quarter record. The trouble sits one line lower — guidance for the December quarter of 7%–10% revenue growth, under the Street’s 11.4%, sent the stock down roughly 3% after hours, and both Apple’s own executives and the reported shipment data point to the same cause: the AI buildout is pulling NAND flash and DRAM out of the consumer supply chain, and Apple is paying the difference.
Key points
- A record quarter that missed on guidance. Q4 revenue of $114.5 billion (+12%) and net income of $30.7 billion beat estimates, but the December-quarter outlook of +7%–10% came in below the 11.4% analysts modeled, with gross margin guided down to 45%–46% (from 48.2% a year earlier); the stock fell about 3% after hours.
- iPhone revenue hit a record while shipments fell. iPhone brought in $57.58 billion (+17%), yet global iPhone shipments dropped about 4% in the quarter per IDC (as reported via Huxiu/Sina Tech), with the iPhone 18 Pro starting price moving from $1,099 to $1,199 — the record rests on higher prices, not more phones.
- Memory costs dominated the earnings call. Executives called current memory pricing “unprecedented”; Apple’s flash spending runs at roughly $25 billion this fiscal year against about $6 billion last year (TechInsights estimate, via Huxiu), and Q4 inventory jumped 154% as the company stockpiled ahead of further increases.
Background
This is the second quarter in a row that Apple has reported inside a memory-price squeeze, and the upstream numbers explain why. On October 29, Samsung told investors its 2027 HBM supply is already sold out at target prices, with DRAM tightness expected to run through 2028; on November 1, South Korea reported October exports up 93.7% year over year, with semiconductors alone accounting for nearly half. AI data centers have been buying NAND and HBM ahead of need, and the squeeze that first showed up in memory makers’ results is now reaching the bill of materials of consumer devices. Apple is the first downstream buyer large enough to make that visible in an earnings call.
The company has already been adjusting prices. Per TechCrunch’s readout of the call, Apple raised Mac and iPad prices at the end of June and iPhone prices in September, partly offsetting memory costs; fourth-quarter inventory reached $14.54 billion, up 154.3% year over year — chips bought ahead of the curve, on the same supply line we followed in our October export story.
The facts
| Metric | FY2026 Q4 (ended 2026-09-26) | YoY | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $114.5B | +12% | Apple press release |
| Net income | $30.7B | beat Street | per Huxiu |
| Diluted EPS | $2.10 | +14% (incl. ~$0.05 tariff refunds) | Apple press release |
| iPhone revenue | $57.58B | +17%, September-quarter record | per Huxiu |
| iPhone global shipments | about -4% | price/volume split | per IDC (via Huxiu/Sina Tech) |
| Greater China revenue | $17.54B | +21% | per Huxiu |
| Gross margin | 47.9% (vs 47.2% year ago) | incl. ~1pt tariff-refund benefit | Apple press release |
| December-quarter guidance | revenue +7%–10%, gross margin 45%–46% | below Street’s +11.4% | earnings call (per Huxiu/TechCrunch) |
| Inventory | $14.54B | +154.3% | TechCrunch |
A few caveats on sourcing. Apple’s own release gives revenue, EPS, gross margin and record-level statements only; net income, the iPhone line, Greater China and the guidance come from the earnings call and press coverage. The $57.58 billion iPhone figure is consistent with Apple’s official “September quarter record for iPhone revenue,” and no official statement contradicts it. The tariff refund flattered gross margin by about a percentage point — strip that out and the quarter lands near 46.9%, which is closer to the 45%–46% December-quarter guide. Huxiu also notes China shipments fell 4.3% while Apple’s unit share there rose from 15.8% to 17.8%, so the domestic revenue jump (+21%) outpaced the company overall.
On pricing, the iPhone 18 Pro start price moved from $1,099 to $1,199 and the Pro Max from $1,199 to $1,299; the 1TB tier gained $300 and the Pro Max 2TB model $500, reaching $2,499. Per the TechInsights estimate carried by Huxiu, flash prices rose roughly fourfold in a year, Apple’s flash spend is about $25 billion this year against $6 billion last year, and cloud providers are buying roughly twice Apple’s volume — which limits how much pull Apple actually has in this market.
What others say
The heaviest words in the quarter came from Apple itself. The chief executive told analysts, “What we’re seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented,” and said that beyond the December quarter Apple expects memory costs “continuing to increase,” with “a decreasing benefit from the carry-in inventory on memory over time”; the COO, asked about further price increases, did not rule them out. Naming a single component as the main drag on gross margin is unusual for an Apple call, and worth registering as such.
Reuters framed the print as “results beat Wall Street expectations on strong iPhone sales” and placed the disappointment on the cost side; TechCrunch added the inventory angle — a 154% build is a company voting with its balance sheet that prices will keep climbing. Huxiu supplies the IDC shipment data and the TechInsights flash-spend estimate, and setting those next to Apple’s official record-revenue line is what makes the price/volume split visible. Nobody disputes that revenue grew on price rather than units; the open question is how much of the cost reaches consumers, and management declined to commit.
Our take
For hardware startups and anyone negotiating component contracts, the notable fact here is that the buyer with the strongest purchasing power in consumer electronics put “unprecedented memory pricing” on the record — the memory supercycle has crossed from upstream results into consumer bills of materials. Budget for at least one more round of NAND/DRAM repricing at your next renewal; as we noted in our CXMT story, supply-side players are reallocating capacity toward the memory market on the same demand curve.
Two honest footnotes. The quarter’s gross margin included roughly one point of tariff refunds, so the underlying margin picture is a touch weaker than 47.9% suggests. And the $25 billion flash-spend figure is a TechInsights third-party estimate that Apple has not confirmed — cite it with that label. What remains unknown is where consumer pricing lands: the iPhone 18 Pro is already $100 higher, the chief executive expects memory costs to keep rising, and the January 2027 earnings call is the next dated checkpoint for judging how deep this round goes.