Despite a record quarter with a 12% increase in sales between July and September, Apple anticipates slowed growth and a reduced margin at the end of the year

Apple on Monday forecast a slowdown in its growth for the holiday period, between 7 and 10%, and a margin cut by the surge in the price of memory chips, despite a record July-September quarter, driven by the iPhone. After the announcement of these forecasts, the stock lost more than 3% around 11:00 p.m. GMT in electronic trading after Wall Street closed. The group, whose sales increased by 16% in the spring then by 12% this summer, is nevertheless expecting its best quarter in history, indicated financial director Kevan Parekh.

This objective “reflects our best estimate taking into account constrained supply”, he clarified. Because its gross margin would decline to 45-46%, compared to 48.2% a year earlier, mainly because of the cost of memory and, to a lesser extent, the deployment of its new Siri AI assistant, built on models derived from Gemini, from Google, and of which Apple is already rationing the most advanced functions. Requests processed on its servers, not on devices, incur computational costs, Kevan Parekh explained.

Apple also plans to charge for AI: the use of Siri AI functions which rely on its servers will be capped, and expanded access will be offered against payment, confirmed boss John Ternus, who presented his first results after taking over the reins from Tim Cook. Like the entire sector, Apple is experiencing a global shortage of memory chips, monopolized by the frenzied construction of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The group raised the prices of its Macs, iPads and accessories from $30 to $300 at the end of June, then by $100 for its new iPhone 18 Pro, launched on September 18.

John Ternus warned that the pressure would continue: "Beyond the December quarter, we see the price of our memory purchases continuing to increase", while the effect of stocks built up in advance would fade. Slowdown in services Services (App Store, iCloud, Apple Music), the group's second engine, are also slowing down: +10% in the last quarter, compared to +12% in the spring, and Apple is only expecting 8 to 9% for the holidays. Kevan Parekh attributed the slowdown primarily to the effect of exchange rates, but also to the decline in mobile gaming, changes to the App Store in some countries and a court ruling in the United States.

For July-October, the last quarter of its staggered financial year, turnover increased by 12% over one year, setting a new record at 114.5 billion dollars, driven by the iPhone (+17%, to 57.6 billion). Net profit reached 30.7 billion (+12%). Shortage The retail prices of smartphones jumped by 20% in 2026 worldwide, and their deliveries fell by the same amount this fall, according to the firm Counterpoint, which however attributes to Apple an unprecedented market share of 22% for this period.

Machine-translated from French