Apple AAPL Q3 2026: iPhone surge, AI push, and a tariff windfall

Apple reported Q3 2026 earnings per share of $2.02, beating the $1.89 consensus estimate by roughly 6.8%. Revenue came in at $109.4 billion, a slim but clean beat against the $109.0 billion estimate. The headline EPS number carries an asterisk worth noting: about $0.11 of the beat came from a one-time tariff refund, meaning nearly half the upside surprise was not driven by underlying operations.

The standout operating result was iPhone, where sales surged 22% year over year to $54.25 billion. Services momentum also accelerated, continuing a trend that has made that segment an increasingly important contributor to Apple's margin profile. Together, the two segments suggest demand held up well in a period when many consumer-hardware peers struggled.

The forward-looking signal investors are watching most closely is Apple's AI posture. The company flagged what it described as an AI inflection tied to its new Siri rollout, and it backed that claim with a 32% jump in R&D spending. Looking back at the last eight quarters, Apple has now beaten EPS estimates in every single period, though the magnitude of the Q3 2026 beat stands out as the largest in that run — context that makes parsing the tariff contribution all the more important for gauging the true earnings trajectory.