Apple Inc. (AAPL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Apple Q4 Fiscal Year 2026 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Suhasini Chandramouli, Head of Investor Relations. Today's call is being recorded. Speaking first today is Apple's CEO, John Ternus, and he'll be followed by CFO, Kevan Parekh. After that, we'll open the call to questions from analysts. Please note that some of the information you'll hear during our discussion today will consist of forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those regarding revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, other income and expense, taxes and future business outlook. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results or trends to differ materially from our forecast, including risks related to the potential impact to the company's business and results of operations from macroeconomic conditions, tariffs and other measures and legal and regulatory proceedings. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in Apple's most recently filed reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-K and the Form 8-K filed with the SEC today, along with the associated press release. Additional information will also be in our report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 26, 2026, to be filed tomorrow and in other reports and filings we make with the SEC. Apple assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. I'd now like to turn the call over to John for introductory remarks.

Thank you, Suhasini. Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us. It's a privilege to be with you for the first time as Apple's CEO, I'm honored to represent our teams and the work they do every day. Today, Apple is pleased to report $114.5 billion in revenue, up 12% from a year ago and a September quarter record. . These results helped Apple achieve its best ever fiscal year for revenue and EPS. This is an amazing time at Apple. We just completed one of the most prolific launch periods in our history. It's been a remarkable time for innovation across all of our categories. One of the greatest testaments to that is the all-new iPhone Duo, the most transformational iPhone since the original. We're also incredibly excited about iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, which take massive leaps forward on camera, battery life and performance, features that our users care deeply about. Meanwhile, Touch has arrived on Mac for the first time with the all-new MacBook Pro, and we were excited to announce the new iMac and 14-inch MacBook Pro. The all-new iPad Mini features a stunning new OLED display and brings us super thin design to the smallest member of the iPad family. Apple Watch now offers users the clearest window yet into their heart health. We introduced AirPods V, which feature industry-leading active noise cancellation in an open air design. And we've laid the foundation for an even more intelligent smart home with the all-new home view, Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini. On top of it all, we're unlocking more powerful AI experiences across our lineup, including with the all-new Siri AI, a profoundly capable and deeply personal assistant, seamlessly integrated across our platforms. And like everything we make, Siri AI is built with essential privacy protections, so no one can access users' data not even Apple. We launched Siri AI in beta for U.S. English users in September and expanded to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish in October. We're really excited to have rolled all these innovations out and there's still so much more we plan to do. I'm feeling great about the opportunities ahead for Apple from our product road map and broad range of services to promising areas like health, emerging markets, enterprise and education. As one example, we recently secured our biggest education deal ever for Mac with the Department of Education in the Philippines. They're going to deploy 170,000 MacBook Neos to teachers and staff. Opportunities like this bring more users into our ecosystem and help fuel growth across our business. Apple is the greatest company in the world. We've assembled an extraordinary collection of talent, the best engineers, designers, developers and experts in every corner of our business, from our supply chain to our stores. Every day, we bring the right people together with the best ideas to build products and services that change lives. Guided by a foundational set of values and a belief that the best technology should make a better world. We do that by making products that are powerful and intuitive and meet Apple's uncompromising standards for quality, performance, design and durability. That's the Apple experience customer love. And with our latest lineup, people have even more reasons than ever to upgrade or switch to an Apple product. At the same time, Apple Services amplify the experience of every device, helping people work, play, listen, watch and stay connected to the world around them. I'm delighted with where our services business is today and where it's going. And with an installed base of more than 2.5 billion active devices, I'm looking forward to expanding our offerings and improving the lives of users around the world. We see tremendous opportunity in AI as well. Siri AI marks a new chapter in AI and Apple. It is a completely reimagined assistant that is powerful, personal, private and deeply relevant to our users' daily lives. Siri AI picks up what's relevant to our users, understands what's on their screen and holds a natural conversation, all to help them with the things they do every day. It's the Siri we've always wanted. We are very pleased with the reviews and feedback we've received, and we're so excited that more and more users are getting to experience it. iPhone remains at the center of our opportunity as the intelligent personal hub. It's always with you and understand your personal context from your messages, to your photos, notes and apps to deliver powerful intelligence right when you need it. Then there's MAC, which is having an AI moment all its own. MAC is what brought me to Apple. And through the years, it has opened a world of possibilities. More than 40 years after the first MAC, the category is having its biggest moment yet with every Mac in our latest lineup a powerful platform for AI. Mac Mini and Max Studio, in particular, are pushing the boundaries of local private AI, giving users the ability to do things once considered impossible. From MAC to iPhone to iPad, we are proud that our products are the best platforms in the industry for AI for both first-party and third-party applications, and we're excited about the opportunities that creates. Ultimately, everything we do at Apple is for our users. The success of every innovation is best measured by its impact on people's lives, and that's what drives us to keep building great products and to get them into the hands of people all around the world. Now let's take a deeper dive into our results for the quarter. As I mentioned earlier, we had an excellent quarter at Apple. In addition to September quarter and fiscal year records in total company revenue, iPhone set a September quarter revenue record, capping its best fiscal year ever. Services achieved an all-time record during the quarter to close out our best year ever there too. We grew in the vast majority of markets we track, setting September quarter records in the Americas, Europe, Greater China and the rest of Asia Pacific. We also set September quarter revenue records in both developed and emerging markets, in addition to an all-time record in India. Turning to our lineup, iPhone revenue was $57.6 billion for the September quarter, up 17% from a year ago despite supply constraints and foreign exchange headwinds. We grew strong double digits in the U.S. and Greater China to achieve September quarter revenue records. We also set a September quarter record for upgraders worldwide as well as in the U.S., China Mainland and India, helping to deliver our best fiscal year ever for upgraders globally. At the launch in September, we introduced the all-new iPhone Duo. From the very beginning, we knew what we wanted to create, a foldable form factor with a larger display that feels as natural and intuitive as iPad. We design the hardware and software together to make it unmistakably iPhone, while enabling entirely new ways to use it. The result is a series of remarkable innovations that we believe will redefine what a foldable phone can be. We're so proud of what our teams have built. Developers have been quickly adapting to this new form factor and we're excited to see more and more apps optimized for iPhone Duo. We've been thrilled with the early response from our viewers and customers and we are working hard to get iPhone Duo into customers' hands as quickly as we can. We have also been thrilled with the response to iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. It's easy to see why customers are embracing them. Our latest models feature a dramatically improved camera system with breakthrough upgrades like variable aperture and all new photographic styles. The A20 Pro and next-generation vapor chamber together delivered the highest sustained performance in iPhone history. And iPhone 18 Promax delivers the biggest increase in battery life ever on an iPhone. A20 Pro also features a new dual 16-core neural engine accelerating on-device AI and computational photography. Turning to Mac. Revenue was $10.8 billion, up 24% from a year ago despite supply constraints. We had double-digit growth in the majority of markets we track, and particularly strong performance in our emerging markets, where we set a September quarter revenue record. We also set a September quarter record for customers new to the MAC. According to IDC, we gained share globally during the quarter and for the full fiscal year, and we have never sold more MAX in a fiscal year than we did this time, which is a truly remarkable testament to these incredible products. Last week, we introduced a whole new way for people to experience MAC. The all-new MacBook Pro with Pro led XDR brings touch to the Mac for the first time. It also boasts the best pro laptop display we have ever shipped plus all-day battery and our most immersive laptop audio. And it all comes together in a thinner and lighter design. We also brought the power of M6 to the new 14-inch MacBook Pro and the new iMac. This latest generation of Apple Silicon includes the world's fastest CPU core to speed up everyday task in addition to a dual 16 core neural engine to drive private on-device AI tasks. Now turning to iPad, where revenue was $6.2 billion for the September quarter. Last week, we introduced the all-new iPad Mini with an amazing new OLED display, super thin design and the power of A20 Pro. With the newest addition, our iPad lineup is more capable and versatile than ever before. Anywhere our users go, there's a place for iPad, like a classroom where it helps students explore the world in amazing ways. -- for design studio, giving artists and creative and expansive canvas to explore their ideas. In Wearables, Home and Accessories revenue was $8.3 billion for the September quarter. Apple Watch makes a simple active wearing a watch, a powerful way to help take care of your health. We were thrilled to introduce our all-new health sensing system to help our users get the most out of health tracking. Paired with the S11 chip, Apple's most powerful wearable chip, the health sensing system delivers the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. We were also happy to unveil new features like health age and readiness which will tell you when to push forward or hold back as well as the all-new health app redesign, and we're excited for audio intelligence, which will be coming in a future software update, and we'll help you remember moments you might otherwise miss. Apple Watch Series 12 brings it all together in a beautifully light design while Apple Watch Ultra 4 goes further with longer battery life compared to the previous generation and the most accurate on-device GPS in a sports watch. Meanwhile, AirPods 5 offers best-in-class open year acanoise cancellation at an incredible price, while improving sound quality, battery life and durability -- with iPhone and Apple Intelligence, including Siri AI, AirPods allow users to do remarkable things like Connect with someone who's speaking in other language with live translation or get answers with broad world knowledge entirely hands free. And just a few weeks ago, we introduced a whole new generation of hardware for the home. That includes Apple Home View, which was designed to be central to the home and personal to everyone in it, bringing entertainment, connection and home management together in 1 place. We announced this alongside the new Apple TV 4K, now smarter with Apple Intelligence, the all-new HomePod mini and Apple Home collection a new program that extends Apple Home beyond our own products through deep collaboration with key partners, all of it, as always, is built on Apple's approach to privacy. Now let's turn to services. Revenue was $31.6 billion, up 10% from a year ago and an all-time record. We saw double-digit growth in the majority of markets that we track, and we set all-time revenue records in the Americas and Europe. -- as well as the September quarter record in the rest of Asia Pacific. 78 primetime Emmy awards were a night to remember for Apple TV with our shows earning more awards than any other network. Widows Bay, the show of the summer, became the most awarded comedy ever in a single year with 14 wins. We're very excited about our programming from fan favorites like slow horses and Ted Lasso, to the upcoming film being human. To date, Apple TV productions have earned more than 900 wins in over 3,800 nominations. Turning to Apple Pay. We recently launched in India with Axis Bank bringing a seamless, safe and secure way to pay in one of the biggest markets in the world. Today, Apple Pay is available in over 90 markets, giving customers around the world peace of mind built into every transaction. Apple Music was created to bring artists and fans closer to the. And with the opening of Apple Music Hall, we have a beautiful new venue for intimate shows that bring them even closer. To celebrate the opening of the site in London, we hosted an unforgettable performance by [indiscernible] John. People love Apple products and services for the countless ways they make life easier, more enjoyable and just playing better. They also count on Apple to create technology responsibly, built the right way, not the easy way. That means building products with even more recycled content to take less from the earth and with even better durability, so they last longer. It means developing intelligent capabilities like sound recognition on Apple Watch to alert users who are deaf or hard of hearing to what's happening around them. It means designing privacy protections like on-device processing, so personal data stays on a user's device. And it means introducing new child safety features. -- to make it easier for parents to manage when and how their kids can use their devices. We're also pleased to be doing more and more manufacturing in the United States. Through our American manufacturing program, we're deepening partnerships with suppliers across the country, including Perama, a titanium producer now supplying iPhone Duo and community Electronics, which is producing the camera technology behind iPhone 18 Pro's new variable aperture system. Nearly 100 components in our newest iPhones come from American companies in more than a dozen states. All told, Apple supports more than 450,000 American jobs with thousands of suppliers and partners across all 50 states. It's all part of our $600 billion 4-year commitment to U.S. innovation and advanced manufacturing. I am proud of what we've accomplished this quarter, and I'm excited for what's ahead. We have everything we need to be extraordinarily successful. And with this team, this vision, this mission and these values, I have no doubt that we will. With that, I'll hand it over to Kevan.

Thanks, John, and good afternoon, everyone. Here's a quick rundown of our key financial metrics. Our revenue of $114.5 billion was up 12% year-over-year, a September quarter revenue record. This strong performance was despite sequential foreign exchange headwinds of nearly 2 percentage points as well as supply constraints on iPhone, Mac and iPad. Products revenue was $82.9 billion, up 12% year-over-year driven by a strong double-digit growth on iPhone and Mac. Our installed base of over 2.5 billion active devices has reached another all-time high across all major product categories and geographic segments. Services revenue was $31.6 billion, up 10% year-over-year. We saw strong performance in many services categories with all-time records in video, cloud services, payment services and advertising and a September quarter record in music. Company gross margin was 47.9% and products gross margin was 37.2%. These both included a benefit from tariff refunds, which had a favorable impact of approximately 1 percentage point in the September quarter. When you remove the tariff refunds from both the June and September quarter, both company and products gross margin would be down about 1 point sequentially and primarily driven by higher memory costs. As of the September quarter, we have received the vast majority of the refunds related to tariffs paid. Services gross margin was 76% up, 40 basis points sequentially. Operating expenses came in at $19.2 billion, up 21% year-over-year as we continue to make investments in R&D. Net income was $30.7 billion. Diluted earnings per share was $2.10, up 14% year-over-year and included $0.05 of favorable impact from tariff refunds. Both net income and EPS set September quarter records even when excluding the tariff refund benefit. Operating cash flow was also very strong at $28.1 billion. This performance marked our best fiscal year yet, with $478.8 billion in revenue, up 15% year-over-year and a fiscal year record for EPS of $8.98 and up 20% year-over-year. Now I'm going to provide some more details for each of our revenue categories. iPhone revenue was $57.6 billion, up 17% year-over-year despite supply constraints. We grew double digits in the majority of markets we track, and we also reached September quarter revenue records across both developed and emerging markets. As John mentioned, it was a record year for total company and we also had our best year ever for iPhone, both worldwide and in every geographic segment. The iPhone active installed base grew to an all-time high, and iPhone had a record year for upgraders globally and in several markets, including the U.S., China Mainland, India and Japan. According to a recent survey from World Panel, iPhone was a top-selling model in the U.S. Urban China, India, the U.K., Germany, Australia and Japan. Mac revenue was $10.8 billion, up 24% year-over-year despite supply constraints. This performance was driven by the strength of the MacBook Neo and MacBook Pro. We saw a double-digit growth in both developed and emerging markets with all-time records in markets like India and Southeast Asia. Emerging markets continued to see strong performance on MAC, resulting in MAX best fiscal year there, driven by record upgraders and customers new to the MAC.. iPad revenue was $6.2 billion, down 10% year-over-year, driven by the supply constraints I mentioned earlier as well as a continued difficult compare against the launch of the A16 powered iPad in the prior year. The iPad installed base reached an all-time high during the quarter and over half of the customers who purchased an iPad were new to the product. Wearables, Home and Accessories revenue was $8.3 billion, down 8% year-over-year as we face a difficult compare against the launch of the Watch SE3 and the AirPods Pro 3 in the prior year. The wearables installed base reached a new all-time high in over half of customers who bought an Apple Watch in the quarter were new to the product. Services revenue set an all-time record of $31.6 billion up 10% year-over-year despite over 1.5 points of sequential FX headwinds. We set all-time revenue records in the majority of markets we track, including several emerging markets like Latin America and India. We are optimistic about the long-term future of our services business. With our large installed base of over 2.5 billion active devices -- we have an incredibly strong foundation for growth opportunities. Our services continue to attract more customers and both transacting and paid accounts reached new all-time highs in the quarter. We also have over 1.5 billion paid subscriptions, which grew double digits during the quarter, reaching an all-time high. And we continue to improve and expand our services offerings from iCloud Plus plans that now include Apple TV and Apple Arcade in more than 100 countries and regions to ads and Apple Maps now live in the U.S. and Canada, which will give local businesses a new way to reach customers while respecting our users' privacy. Turning now to enterprise. Organizations are continuing to expand their fleets of Apple devices to transform operations and drive productivity. Duke Health performed the first surgical procedure using Apple Vision Pro for hip arthroscopy with an FDA-authorized app from Stryker. American Airlines is deploying over 37,000 iPhone 17 devices to flight attendants for in-flight purchases with tap to pay. In addition to 25,000 iPads for pilots and mechanics. -- and more companies are choosing Mac across a growing range of use cases, including for on-device AI. For example, Gap Inc. is running AI entirely on Mac mini for loss prevention across hundreds of stores, eliminating cloud token costs. Christies, a world-leading auction house is running local models of Max Studio to improve core productivity workflows such as pricing estimates. Let's turn to our cash position and capital return program. We ended the quarter with $137 million in cash and marketable securities and $80 billion in total debt. During the quarter, we returned $28 billion to shareholders. This included $3.9 billion in dividends and equivalents and $24 billion in share repurchases. As we move ahead into the December quarter, I'd like to review our outlook which includes the types of forward-looking information that [indiscernible] referred to. Importantly, the color we're providing assumes that global tariff rates, policies and their application remain in effect as of this call, and the global macroeconomic outlook does not worsen from today. We expect our December quarter total company revenue to grow between 7% and 10% year-over-year, which reflects our best view of constrained supply. We expect this to be the best quarter for revenue in the history of the company. We expect services revenue to grow between 8% and 9% year-over-year in the December quarter. This contemplates sequential headwinds and primarily driven by third-party licensing and foreign exchange. We expect gross margin to be between 45% and 46%. This includes primarily the impact of higher memory costs as well as some costs related to the ramp of CRE AI. We expect operating expenses to be between $20.4 billion and $20.8 billion. We expect Lion to be around $300 million, excluding any potential impact from the mark-to-market of minority investments, and our tax rate to be around 17%. Finally, today, our Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.27 per share of common stock payable on November 16, 2026, and to shareholders of record as of November 12, 2026. With that, I'll hand it back to John.

Thanks, Kevan. Before we get into questions, I'd like to introduce Sabi -- can Apple's Chief Operating Officer. Many of you know Sabi from his work with worldwide operations and supply chain, leading many important functions at Apple, including manufacturing, Apple care, environmental efforts and supplier partnerships around the world. Savi and his team are the reason we're able to build and deliver products at a scale and of a caliber unlike anyone else out there. I've asked [indiscernible] to join Kevin and me on these calls as we take your questions.

Thank you, John. We ask that you limit yourself to 2 questions. Operator, may we have the first question, please?

Our first question is from Michael Ng of Goldman Sachs.

I have 2. First, on the iPhone 8, the standard model was left out of the September lineup. I was just wondering if you could share some of the reasons why, whether there were some supply constraints and component related things that led to that decision or if it had to do with the launch of the Duo? Any color there would be helpful. And then I have a follow-up. .

Yes. Thanks, Michael. Look, we were thrilled to introduce iPhone on 18 Pro earlier this year in September. And we have iPhone 17, iPhone Air and 17E, continuing to kind of round out this incredibly strong lineup for the holidays. So obviously, we don't make any comments about future road map, but we're excited about where we're at. .

Great. And then my second question is just around iCloud. It seems like it's becoming a more strategic product just given the tie-in with home security as well as the potential monetization opportunity for Apple Intelligence -- so I was just wondering what are you seeing on iCloud us? Are there any tailwinds in terms of attach rates, just particularly given the rising costs for increased storage options on iPhone and the company's push into home products? .

Yes. Thanks for the question. I think we just in the September quarter, had an all-time record for our cloud services for revenue. And you mentioned iCloud. This is something we're very excited about. We have these iCloud Plus plans that now include Apple TV and Apple Arcade in more than 100 countries and regions where we think we can really reach new potential subscribers. . And then as you mentioned, we think there's good opportunities on Apple Intelligence. There's going to be some usage limits on features that rely on service side models, which include Siri AI and intelligent photo editing, some other things like that. And so anyone who needs greater capacity will be able to purchase expanded access in the future. So kind of to your point, in the beginning, iCloud tier is really largely about storage, but we've been adding more capabilities and features to it. .

Awesome. Operator, could we next question, please? .

Our next question is from Erik Woodring from Morgan Stanley. .

John, congrats on your first quarter here. So as the world of AI evolves from chatbots to consumer agents, it seems like they are growing opportunities for Apple. It also seems like there are risks. And John, I just love to get your perspective on what role you want Apple and Siri AI to play in kind of this consumer genetic AI landscape? And just how you look at any potential risks of some of these agents trying to encroach on your services business? And then a quick follow-up, please. .

Sure. Thanks, Eric. Look, we -- first and foremost, we are incredibly excited to launch Siri AI alongside the latest generation of Apple intelligence features. Sirilong been popular with our users with more than 2.5 billion requests every day. And with Siri AI, we really have the kind of the series that we always wanted it's primarily request based today. But as we talked about at WWDC, it's built on a modern orchestrated driven architecture that gives us real room to expand. Its capabilities over time. As far as agent capabilities, we think these are promising tools for users. We just want to make sure that users are aware of what they're giving access to. We want to make sure this is done in a way that protects security and privacy. So we're pushing really hard on that with Serie AI, but we're also really encouraged the fact that Apple devices, we think, are the best places to use all forms of AI. .

Okay. Awesome. I appreciate that, John. And then just quickly as a follow-up, how should we -- if we take a big step back, how should we think about the durability of services growth. Just -- I realize that was 10% in the September quarter, we're a little bit below that in the December quarter. as certain things like search evolves and regulatory changes impact app store monetization, are there new services that we should be looking towards that you believe can become a more sizable offset to maybe take some pressure off these historically important revenue streams.

Erik, it's Kevin. Thanks for the question. Let me take this one. Let me start by just talking through kind of what we did -- we talked about during the December quarter. Services grew by 10% year-over-year. And we look at that relative to the June quarter, foreign exchange was the main driver and that change on year-on-year growth rate sequentially. We saw -- we continue to see strong performance in September in many of our service categories, all-time records in video, cloud services, payment services and advertising, including our first-party Apple ads and a September quarter record in music. But I think it's important to kind of step back also and look at the progression of what we've seen in our services business over the last several quarters. I think it's an important backdrop. And so we spoke about in the last call, we expected foreign exchange to be the largest driver of the change in the year-on-year growth rate from the March to September quarter. This ended up being a significant headwind of about 4 percentage points. And we expect additional sequential headwind of about another 0.5 percentage point for the services business as we go into the December quarter. We've also seen some factors that impacted the performance of the App Store. And during the September quarter, the performance on the App Store was similar to the prior year and we had a record number of paid subscriptions with double-digit growth for third-party apps on the App Store. At the same time, we did see some headwinds in mobile gaming that we've talked about before and expect to see those continue into the December quarter. And keep in mind, we also made some changes to the App Store business model in certain countries. And in the U.S., we continue to operate under a court ruling impacting the link out transactions. As we move ahead, we expect services growth to be between 8% to 9%, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks. -- in the December quarter and his outlook completes our best estimates on sequential headwinds primarily from third-party licensing and the additional 0.5 percentage point of foreign exchange I just mentioned. And I'll turn it over to John to talk about some perspectives as we look ahead.

Yes. Thanks. I guess I'd like to add to that, Eric. I think fundamentally, we feel really good about the long-term opportunity that we have in our services business. we see continued growth in the installed base of over 2.5 billion active devices, which is fundamentally the foundation for future growth as more customers are able to experience our products and services. example of this during the September quarter, AppStore saw a record number of nearly 1 billion average weekly visitors. And we saw growth in the number of users who are paying for at least 1 service, reaching an all-time high. . Another good example of this in India, we recently launched Apple Pay with Axis Bank, bringing the seamless safe, secure way to pay to one of the biggest markets in the world. And then on top of all this, as we talked about, we think intelligence is going to be another opportunity as well. So overall, we're feeling really good about where we're headed in the long term.

Our next question is from Amit Daryanani from Evercore. .

Thanks, and congrats on mind as well, John, on your first earnings call here. John, you sort of described the iPhone as an intelligent personal hub in your opening comments and as personal AI agents become more prominent, do you see the potential for the primary customer relationship to shift from the device to the agent over time? And really given Apple's integration of silicon hardware and software, where do you see the greatest opportunity to combine things like personal context and onstream awareness into an agent that can perhaps move beyond answering questions. And how for long do you think Siri is in bringing those pieces together right now?

Yes. Thank you, Amit, for the question. as I said before and we said in our announcement, we really do think of the iPhone as the intelligent personal hub. I mean if you think about it, so much of your personal data is on your iPhone, whether it's your contacts, your communications, health data, financial data, all of that and Siri can tap into that and help you access it in a way that's very secure and private, and that nobody else has access to, even Apple doesn't have access to it. And so we think that is a core kind of differentiator that we're excited about. And we're going to continue to push on that. And so I think this is an area that we feel really good about. .

Got it. And then Kevin, the December quarter gross margin, I wonder if you could spend a bit of time on that. I think if I exclude all the tariff refunds, you sort of implying gross margin will be down about 140 basis points sequentially, at least -- can you separate how much of this is maybe commodity memory inflation versus mix versus you called out CAI ramp costs as well. Can you just talk about what the different moving parts are as we think about the sequential gross margin, that would be helpful.

Yes, it sounds good. Let me try to address that for you. So as you alluded for the December quarter, we talked about a gross margin outlook of between 45% and 46%. And as you said, when you remove the benefit of the tariff refunds in September, the midpoint of the range is a decline sequentially in the magnitude you mentioned. We expect most of that decline to be driven by higher memory costs, and I'll give John kind of the mic here to give you a perspective on that, and then I'll take the balance of your question.

Yes. Let me give you an overall view on memory. What we're seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented. And as we said earlier in the September quarter, we did see higher memory costs as compared to the June quarter. which were partly offset by the benefit of carrying inventory and lower costs on certain nonmemory components. Now for the December quarter, we expect even higher memory costs, partly offset by a few factors. So as you know, we changed the price on many of our products, including Mac and iPad at the end of June and iPhone in September, and these price increases provided some offset. . We also expect to see some benefit from carrying inventory in the December quarter as well as well as lower costs on certain nonmemory components. And looking beyond the December quarter, we see the pricing for memory purchases continuing to increase. As we said before, we do believe we'll see a decreasing benefit from the carry in inventory on memory over time. And there's one more thing I wanted to add, as we work to improve supply, our manufacturing purchase obligations have increased by $33 billion from June to the September quarter, which you'll see in our annual filing when it comes out tomorrow. Now back to Kevan for the other parts of it.

Yes. Amit, you mentioned AI and what I alluded to in the prepared remarks. So as we continue to roll out CRAI to more customers, the associated cloud costs will be recognized through services cost of sales. And consistent with how we've always accounted for Maps, Siri and iCloud for the devices we sell that include these bundled services, we defer a portion of the revenue and recognize it over the life of the device. So our hardware deferrals as of the December quarter will reflect the addition of Siri AI, both of these items will have an impact to the gross margin. But as always, we look to continue to make the investments necessary to support the business. And we also see a wide range of ways that AI can contribute to revenue growth over time. So on the product side, we feel AI offers a compelling reason for customers to upgrade and switch in order to get the latest capabilities. And we also feel there's opportunities across third-party apps and partnerships as well as first-party opportunities, as John highlighted earlier, with the expanded access to server-side features of Siri and Apple intelligence features as well. .

Operator, could we have the next question, please?

Our next question is from Ben [indiscernible] from Neles Research.

John, my first question, I wanted to ask you about your cash neutral policy. On one of the previous calls, you guys said that you weren't going to focus on that anymore and that was not no longer the policy. What are you -- how -- under your leadership, what do you mean by that? Do you mean like you may go to net debt to buy back stock or do some M&A or go the opposite way and cord some cash again. Your thoughts on that would be welcome.

Ben, it's Kevan. Let me take that one. As you know, we did talk about the fact that we we're no longer using net cash neutral as a target. I think as we explained on the last call, the last time we talked about that was the fact that we think it makes sense to evaluate our cash and debt position independently and making sure we can optimize that and giving us the right flexibility. We remain committed to our capital allocation philosophy, which is we're going to invest everything we need to put -- invest in our business. and return excess cash to shareholders. And so we continue to maintain that discipline. And we do think this removal of net cash interest gives us flexibility to optimize so we can make the right investments for the company.

All right. And then I wanted to ask about services. I realize you only guide 1 quarter at a time. But from the 8% to 9%, when you think long term, I was wondering if you're willing to say you think whether it can accelerate from there and whether AI could help you launch new services we haven't thought of yet that are accretive to the growth rate there.

Yes. I think, Ben, on that one, I think you heard John talk about a lot of the long-term attributes that really feel give us optimism about the long-term opportunity in our services business. Again, I think we talked about things like the installed base of over 2.5 billion active devices, -- we obviously saw a record number of weekly visitors in the app store in September quarter. We also continue to see growth in users we are paying for a lease to service, reaching all-time high in both transacting and paid accounts -- we're excited about emerging markets. We talked about the launch of Apple Pay in India, but we continue to see good momentum in emerging markets in our services business, where we had double-digit growth. And so -- we continue to feel really bullish about all the different elements as we look at the longer arc of time. And I think, as John mentioned, we are continuing to improve the features and reach of existing and new services as well. The example was the expansion of iCloud plans to include Apple TV and Arcade obviously reaching a lot of new potential subscribers. AppleCare One family is another example of that. And so we continue to look for opportunities to grow our services business.

All right. Thank you, Ben. Operator, could we have the next question, please?

Our next question is from Wamsi Mohan from Bank of America.

John, great to have you on the call as CEO. I appreciate the comments on memory. Clearly, you're now competing for memory more so versus historically from pretty well-capitalized companies who are signing long-term agreements. So my question is, is Apple changing anything in the way that you are procuring memory? How do you think about the progression of memory over time? And if it continues to be a headwind -- is pricing also going to remain dynamic and potentially move higher? And I have a follow-up.

Good afternoon, and this is Savi. Let me take that one. So as you know, we have worked with many of our suppliers for decades, and we deeply value their partnership over the years. We know our products would simply not be possible without them, and we look forward to continuing our work together -- we're always working hard to improve supply. And as John said earlier, we -- our manufacturing purchase obligations have increased by $33 billion from the June to the September quarter. .

And Wamsi, maybe I'll add here because you asked the question about pricing and how we're managing it. So look, we're trying to manage this with a number of actions. You would just talk about the fact we're continuing to pursue lower cost and nonmemory components John mentioned the fact that we have some benefit of care and inventory. And we did reluctantly make the decision to change pricing in a number of our products, starting with the iPad and Mac in the June time frame and an iPhone more recently in September. I think what we try to do is evaluate and doing all that, we evaluate the unit's revenue margin. And we're really being thoughtful and deliberate and evaluating kind of the short-term and long-term considerations, and we really believe we're balancing this well.