Apple Posts Record $114.5B Quarter as Tariff Refunds Add $0.05 to EPS

Apple closed its fiscal 2026 with a September quarter that set records on nearly every line that matters — and got a documented assist from Washington. The headline numbers, from the company's earnings release filed with the SEC, beat Wall Street estimates on revenue, earnings and gross margin alike.

The scoreboard. Revenue was $114.5 billion, up 12% year over year and a September-quarter record, against LSEG consensus of $113.39 billion. Diluted EPS was $2.10, up 14% and also a record, against $1.99 expected. Net income was $30.7 billion, a September-quarter record. Gross margin was 47.9%, ahead of the 47.5% analysts expected.

The tariff refund, in the open. Apple states plainly in the release that gross margin included a favorable impact of approximately 1 percentage point from tariff refunds, and that EPS included a favorable impact of $0.05. The refunds totaled $731 million received in the quarter. On the earnings call, CFO Kevan Parekh added that the refunds also lifted products margin by about a point, that Apple has now received the vast majority of the refunds related to tariffs paid — and that excluding refunds from both quarters, gross margin would have fallen about a point sequentially on higher memory costs. The honest read: strip the refund out and EPS is $2.05, still above the $1.99 consensus. The beat is real; the refund made it wider.

Where the growth came from. iPhone revenue was $57.6 billion, up 17.5% and a September-quarter record, ahead of the $56.54 billion expected — early demand for the iPhone 18 Pro lineup and price increases helped offset rising memory-chip costs, per Reuters. Services reached an all-time high of $31.6 billion, up 9.8%. Mac jumped 23.7% to $10.8 billion. The soft spots were iPad, down 10.4% to $6.2 billion, and Wearables, Home and Accessories, down 7.9% to $8.3 billion, both against tough launch compares and supply constraints. Greater China revenue rose 21% to $17.5 billion.

The full year. Fiscal 2026 revenue was $478.8 billion, up 15%, with net income of $132.2 billion and full-year EPS of $8.98, up 20% — all records. The installed base passed 2.5 billion active devices, an all-time high. Apple generated $28.1 billion in operating cash flow in the quarter and returned $28 billion to shareholders; the dividend is $0.27 a share, payable November 16 to holders of record November 12. It was also the first earnings report under CEO John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook on September 1.

The outlook is where the caution sits. On the call, Apple guided December-quarter revenue growth of 7–10% — which management expects to make it the best revenue quarter in company history — with Services growth of 8–9%. But gross margin is guided down to 45–46%: the tariff refund benefit is largely behind it, and memory costs are rising into the December quarter and beyond. That margin guide, not the record quarter just printed, is what investors will trade on next. Shares were volatile and modestly lower in after-hours trading despite the beat, after a roughly 25% year-to-date run into the print.

Figures are from Apple's Q4 FY2026 earnings release (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1) and its earnings call; consensus figures are LSEG data via Reuters. This is a news summary, not investment advice.