AAPL Stock Jumps After Strong Q3 Guidance Shows Signs iPhone Maker Is Resilient To Chip Shortages

• Strong China sales offset America and Europe sales, which lagged expectations. 
• Q3 revenue guidance far exceeds expectations.
• Announces $0.27 dividend and $100 billion share buyback.

Apple (AAPL) stock price reversed course after-hours to gain 4% on Thursday as the iPhone maker’s robust Q3 revenue guidance strengthened investor confidence in the company’s ability to weather memory chip shortages for now, but CEO Tim Cook warned of higher memory costs in the upcoming quarter. 

Apple forecast Q3 revenue to grow between 14% and 17%, far exceeding analyst expectations for 9% growth in the quarter ending June 2026. The implied range is $107.2-$110.0 billion, against analysts’ consensus of $102.6 billion. 

Apple, along with most other tech companies, is facing a memory chip shortage, with demand far exceeding supply, driven by surging memory and computing requirements for running sophisticated AI agents. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook warned on the Q2 earnings call that the company’s ability to shield iPhones and other products from rising memory prices “won’t last forever” and will become “increasingly difficult.” He added that memory costs are expected to be “significantly higher” in the third quarter. 

Apple earned $2.01 per share, above expectations of $1.94, while revenue came in at $111.18 billion, above expectations of $108.9 billion in its fiscal Q2 2026, with strong China sales overshadowing weakness in America and Europe. China sales came in at $20.5 billion, up from $16 billion last year. 

iPhone sales in fiscal Q2 jumped 21.7% year-on-year to $56.99 billion, marking its second consecutive quarter of above 20% rise in sales.  

The launch of a series of new products in March this year, including the low-cost MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, updated iPad Air models, and a fresh MacBook Pro, has helped support revenues during the second quarter. 

Apple, in its earnings release, also said it would buy back as much as $100 billion in shares and declared a cash dividend of $0.27 per share of the company’s common stock, a 4% increase.

All eyes now turn to John Ternus, who is set to take over the top position at Apple from Tim Cook, starting Sep 1, 2026.  Cook, who has run the company for 15 years, will remain at Apple as executive chairman. 

AAPL Retail View

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits was ‘bullish,’ and message volumes were ‘high.’ 

One user said that Apple was “unstoppable” with its strong revenue guidance. 

The stock has lost 0.2% year-to-date. 

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