A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2026 fiscal first quarter (which ran from September 28, 2025, to December 27, 2025, and did not actually include any days from calendar year 2026) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. The fiscal first quarter is always Apple’s best quarter of the year because it includes holiday sales. This time, the fiscal first quarter was also Apple’s best fiscal quarter of all time, with a record revenue of $143.8 billion, up 16% percent from the 2025 Q1. That is just an astonishing number, and much higher than the last two record quarters: 2025 Q1 ($124.3 billion) and 2022 Q1 ($123.9 billion). But as impressive as the number is, the financial performance isn’t the real reason that these calls interest me. What interests me is that this is one of four times a year when Apple provides some indication of how well its products are selling and answers questions from a bunch of analysts. I’m always especially curious to discover what Apple has to say about the iPhone and iPad and related technologies. If you want to get all of the nitty-gritty details, you can listen to the audio from the announcement conference call on the Apple website, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors. Snell also created a number of useful charts that put Apple’s financial announcements in perspective over time. Apple’s official press release is here. Here are the items that stood out to me.
iPhone
- Apple CEO Tim Cook started the call by saying that “demand for iPhone was simply staggering, with revenue growing 23% year-over-year and all-time records across every geographic segment.” Specifically, iPhone revenue was $85.3 billion, making it by far the best iPhone quarter ever.
- Cook said that Apple currently has its “strongest iPhone lineup we’ve ever had, and by far the most popular.” He mentioned all of the current models—iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17—but did not identify how any specific models were selling. To be clear, Apple never releases that data, so outsiders just have to speculate on which models are the most popular.
- Cook said that demand for iPhones is exceeding supply primarily due to constraints in processor manufacturing. (Apple designs the A19 and A19 Pro processors used in the latest iPhones, and they are manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).) Cook said that Apple wasn’t willing to comment publicly on when supply is predicted to catch up with demand.
- Cook said that Apple’s recent collaboration with Google and its Gemini AI model would be used to power a more personalized version of Siri.
- Cook said that Visual Intelligence is one of the iPhone’s most popular AI features.
- Cook said that Apple sees a future for both on-device AI and AI that uses Apple’s secure Private Cloud Compute servers. Cook said that both of those differentiate Apple from other companies because of Apple’s focus on user privacy.
- Cook said that a big reason for the all-time record iPhone sales was strong demand in China, where Apple set an all-time revenue record. Cook cited a third-party report that iPhones were among the top three smartphones in urban China during the quarter.
- Cook said that India is the second-largest smartphone market in the world. While Apple had its best-ever quarter in India, it still has only a modest market share of the overall market and thus sees significant growth opportunity in India.
iPad
- iPad revenue was $8.6 billion, which is up 6% from this time last year.
- Cook mentioned that there were more iPad upgrades in the past fiscal quarter than ever before.
- Apple’s CFO Kevan Parekh said that AstraZeneca is rolling out over 5,000 M5-powered iPad Pros to its pharmaceutical sales team.
Other
- Apple’s revenue in its services category was an all-time record $30 billion, which is up 14% from this time last year.
- Cook said that Apple saw a 36% increase in people watching Apple TV compared to this time last year. Cook said that was because of its popular shows such as Pluribus.
- Cook said that Apple Music reached an all-time high in the number of listeners and the number of new subscribers.
- Cook asserted that, in the past year, Apple Pay eliminated more than $1 billion in fraud.
- Cook said that App Store developers have earned more than $550 billion since 2008.
- Parekh said that there are over 2.5 billion Apple devices currently in active use.