Apple Shares Fall Over 4% Post-Market Even as Q3 Profit Rises 27% and Revenue Beats Estimates

TradingKey - Apple ( AAPL) shares fell over 4% in after-hours trading to $319.09 after reporting its fiscal third-quarter 2026 financial results.

[Apple Share Price Chart, Source: TradingView]

During the period, Apple's net sales increased by 16% year-over-year to $109.417 billion, slightly beating market expectations of $108.65 billion. CEO Tim Cook called it the company's "strongest June quarter ever," with double-digit growth across iPhone, Mac, and Services, as well as all geographic segments.

By product, iPhone revenue grew about 22% year-over-year to $54.252 billion, higher than the market expectation of $53.86 billion; Mac revenue rose about 29% year-over-year to $10.352 billion; Services revenue increased about 12% year-over-year to $30.739 billion; Wearables, Home and Accessories revenue was $7.883 billion, up about 6% year-over-year; iPad revenue was $6.191 billion, down about 6% year-over-year, making it the only declining category among major product lines.

[Source: Apple's Third Quarter Results]

By region, Greater China revenue grew about 22% year-over-year to $18.816 billion, basically in line with market expectations (22% growth to $18.77 billion), showing that the Chinese market is recovering as expected; Europe revenue increased about 22% year-over-year to $29.395 billion; the Americas grew about 11% to $45.781 billion; Japan grew about 13% to $6.554 billion; and Rest of Asia Pacific grew about 16% to $8.871 billion.

On the profitability side, Apple's net profit for the fiscal third quarter was $29.789 billion, up about 27% year-over-year; diluted earnings per share (EPS) was $2.02, up 29% year-over-year, beating the market expectation of $1.89.

[Source: Apple's Third Quarter Results]

It is worth noting that the results for the period include a one-time benefit from tariff refunds. The company disclosed that the tariff refunds had a positive impact of about 2 percentage points on gross margin and boosted EPS by about $0.11. The gross margin for the period was 50.1%, higher than the market expectation of 48%, but was basically flat with expectations after excluding the impact of the tariff refunds; even excluding the $0.11 boost, EPS was still slightly higher than market expectations.

In terms of expenses, research and development (R&D) expenses increased about 32% year-over-year to $11.729 billion, while selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses increased about 10% year-over-year to $7.346 billion.