Apple’s 2 November Earnings: New CEO John Ternus Faces Wall Street as iPhone Duo Tests Holiday Demand
The September quarter itself barely includes the iPhone Duo — but Monday’s guidance will show whether foldable demand and soaring memory costs shape Apple’s holiday quarter.
Highlights
- Apple reports 2026 fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year results on 2 November, after the market closes, in new CEO John Ternus’s first earnings call
- Management is guiding for 10% sales growth at the midpoint and a 47.5% gross margin, while Wall Street expects 10.6% sales growth and $1.98 earnings per share, up from $1.85 last year
- The iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable phone, sold out on launch day two weeks ago and is already on order through January, but launched too late to feature much in the September quarter
- Former CEO Tim Cook warned last quarter of a 100-year flood on memory pricing, and management attributes lower gross margin and decelerating iPhone growth to skyrocketing memory prices
- Apple stock has soared 27% year to date and trades at nearly 40 times trailing 12-month earnings, leaving little room for a guidance miss
A first call under a new chief executive
Apple will report 2026 fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year results on 2 November, and it will be the first time that new CEO John Ternus is in the spotlight, with the market looking for updates about how the business is managing through inflation and high memory costs The Motley Fool. Ternus took over from Tim Cook in September, according to reporting on the earnings preview, and Monday’s call will be his first chance to frame Apple’s trajectory for investors in his own terms TradingKey.
Apple has become only the second company in the world to reach a $5 trillion market cap, and investors love its dominance and resilience — but the company is still proving how it can compete in an artificial intelligence-driven landscape The Motley Fool. Unlike most of its peers, Apple is not all-in on AI: its edge is in hardware, and that is where it is placing its bets The Motley Fool. That strategy has worked before, but Monday’s numbers will test whether hardware alone can keep carrying a valuation of this size.
What the numbers are expected to show
Management is guiding for 10% sales growth at the midpoint and a 47.5% gross margin, while Wall Street expects 10.6% sales growth for the quarter and $1.98 in earnings per share, up from $1.85 last year The Motley Fool. Separate analyst estimates put revenue at about $113.4 billion, up from $102.5 billion a year earlier, with the iPhone segment projected at about $56.58 billion, a 15% increase TradingKey.
The context for those expectations is a memory-price shock. Last quarter was when former CEO Tim Cook warned of a 100-year flood on memory pricing, which is affecting costs and supply, and the company is expecting a lower gross margin and a deceleration in iPhone sales growth, with management attributing all of this to skyrocketing memory prices The Motley Fool. Rising memory costs could pressure earnings growth and make forward guidance more important than the quarter itself, according to previews of the report Ad Hoc News.
The Duo question — and why Monday cannot answer it yet
Apple just launched the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone, which works as both a standard phone and a small tablet, and demand has been outstripping supply: it sold out on launch day two weeks ago, and it is already on order through January The Motley Fool. The Duo starts at $1,999 and went on sale on 23 October, with delivery dates slipping to January within minutes of preorders opening on 16 October, and Counterpoint Research expects Apple to sell about 6 million units this year TradingKey.
Here is the catch that careful readers should hold in mind: because the Duo launched after the September quarter ended, it will show up first in December-quarter guidance, not in Monday’s results TradingKey. Monday’s quarter captures only a week or two of iPhone 18 Pro sales, so the true demand picture for both that device and the Duo will not emerge until Apple reports its first fiscal quarter of the year Foreign Policy Journal. A key question for that future report is whether the nearly $2,000 Duo is pulling buyers away from the Pro Max, which carries a slightly lower price point Foreign Policy Journal.
Why the bar is so high
Apple tends to beat on earnings, but on 2 November it will do so in the context of Apple stock soaring 27% year to date and trading at nearly 40 times trailing 12-month earnings, which does not leave any wiggle room: if the market is unsure about performance or guidance, the stock could take a hit The Motley Fool. That is doubly true after a brutal October for big tech, in which investors punished heavy AI spending across the sector. Apple’s pitch is different — hardware and integration rather than data-centre scale — but it will be judged by the same unforgiving standard: show the growth, or show the guidance that proves it is coming.
What to watch
Watch three things on Monday: the December-quarter revenue guidance, any comment from Ternus on memory costs and Duo supply, and whether iPhone growth guidance holds in the mid-teens as analysts expect. The quarter’s own numbers matter less than the outlook — and that outlook will set the tone for Apple’s holiday season. This article is reporting, not investment advice.
