Apple Q3 strong courtesy of iPhone, Mac demand

Apple delivered strong third quarter earnings, saw iPhone sales surge 22% and continued to benefit from forgoing heavy AI-related capital expenditures.

The company reported third quarter earnings of $2.02 a share, which got a boost of 11 cents a share from tariff refunds. Apple sales were $109.4 billion, up 16% from a year ago.

Tim Cook, outgoing Apple CEO, said the quarter saw double-digit gains across iPhone, Mac and services. However, services sales lagged estimates.

Wall Street was expecting Apple to report third quarter earnings of $1.89 a share on revenue of $108.65 billion.

CFO Kevan Parekh said the quarter featured June quarter records for earnings per share and operating cash flow.

By the numbers for the third quarter:

• iPhone revenue was $54.25 billion, up from $44.6 billion a year ago.
• Mac revenue was $10.35 billion compared to $8.05 billion a year ago.
• iPad revenue was $6.2 billion, down from $6.58 billion a year ago.
• Wearables revenue was $7.88 billion, up from $7.4 billion.
• Services revenue was $30.74 billion, up from $27.4 billion a year ago.