Apple (AAPL) earnings preview: what to watch in its fiscal Q4 and full-year 2026

Apple reports its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year 2026 results on Monday, November 2, 2026, after the US market close, with its conference call at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET. That date comes from Apple's own investor-relations notice, as reprinted by MacTrast. The quarter covers July through September, so it includes the first weeks of the new iPhone cycle.

What last quarter showed

Our analysis of Apple's fiscal Q3 2026 (the three months to June 27) found a strong quarter with a one-off inside it:

Apple's earnings release said tariff refunds (repayments of import duties struck down by the US Supreme Court in February) added about 2 points to gross margin and $0.11 to EPS. Without them, EPS was about $1.91, up roughly 22%, and operating margin (the share of revenue left after running the business, before interest and tax) was about 30.6%, close to last year's 30.0%. A richer mix of Pro iPhones and laptops added margin; R&D spending, up 32% to $11.73B and driven by AI, used up most of it.

What Apple has said about the next quarter

The 10-Q we analyzed contains no numeric outlook. What it does say is qualitative: memory, storage and advanced-chip costs are rising and Apple "expects these trends to intensify"; it has already taken "actions, such as price increases"; and "in general, gross margins will be subject to volatility and downward pressure." Apple gives its quarterly revenue and margin outlook on the earnings call rather than in the filing, and our report did not cover that outlook, so we don't restate it here.

Three things to watch

1. Hardware margin once the refunds are gone. Apple's products gross margin (what's left from hardware sales after the cost of making them) was 40.1% as reported, but we estimate about 37% without the refunds. That compares with 38.7% in the March quarter and 34.5% a year ago. If the refunds have stopped, the reported figure will fall by several points even if nothing else changes. The real question is whether the underlying level holds near 37% or slides toward the mid-30s as memory costs rise.

2. iPhone growth against 22%, now with higher prices. iPhone supplied about $9.7B of last quarter's $15.4B revenue increase, credited each quarter this year to "higher net sales of Pro models." Apple has now confirmed in writing that it has raised some prices. September-quarter iPhone growth compared with that 22% pace is the clearest sign of whether higher prices are costing Apple sales. Services, which slowed to 12% from 16% in the March quarter, is the second line to check.

3. R&D growth against revenue growth. R&D has grown by about a third a year for three quarters running, while revenue grew about 16%. With the refund boost removed, operating margin was roughly flat year over year. If R&D keeps growing at twice the rate of revenue and the refunds fall away, operating margin is more likely to shrink than to grow from the 30.6% underlying level.

Two smaller items from the balance sheet are worth checking in the 10-K. Component inventory rose to $7.65B from $2.12B in nine months, consistent with Apple buying parts ahead of rising prices. Gross intangible assets also rose by $13.3B, and the 10-Q gave no explanation for that.

The full-year release will also show whether nine-month cash generation held up: $117.0B of operating cash flow against $101.5B of net income through June. Part of that gain was timing in supplier payments, not earnings.

We'll publish our analysis of the full-year results after Apple files. The Q3 figures above are the baseline we'll measure it against.