Apple's Q1 2026 report card: Tim Cook delivers 'monster quarter' with best-ever sales for iPhone, plus a surprise China comeback

Apple's Q1 2026 report card: Tim Cook delivers 'quarter for the record books' with best-ever iPhone sales, plus a surprise China comebackApple promised a monster quarter, and it delivered. The company reported $143.8 billion in revenue for Q1 2026, up 16% from last year, marking its biggest quarter ever. iPhone sales surged 23% to $85.3 billion, earnings per share hit $2.84 (beating Wall Street's $2.68 estimate), and the company now counts over 2.5 billion active devices globally.CEO Tim Cook called iPhone demand "simply staggering" during the earnings call. Apple set all-time revenue records across every geographic region. Greater China delivered a 38% year-over-year surge that put months of hand-wringing about Apple's position in that market to rest."It was the best iPhone quarter in history in Greater China," Cook told analysts. Store traffic in China grew by strong double digits, and iPhones claimed the top three smartphone spots in urban China during the quarter. The installed base reached all-time highs in both Greater China and mainland China, with record numbers of upgraders and strong double-digit growth in switchers.Apple's India momentum showed no signs of slowing. The company set quarterly revenue records for iPhone, Mac, and iPad in the country, along with an all-time high for services revenue.Cook called India "a huge opportunity" given its position as the world's second-largest smartphone market and fourth-largest PC market. Despite solid growth in recent years, Apple still holds modest share there — which Cook sees as upside. "The majority of customers buying iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Watch are all new to that product," he noted. The installed base in India grew by strong double digits during the quarter, and Apple opened its fifth retail store in December with another Mumbai location on the way.The services division notched another all-time record at $30 billion, up 14% from last year. Apple TV viewership jumped 36% in December, and Apple Music hit new highs in both listenership and subscriber growth.Not everything sparkled, though. Mac revenue dropped 6.7% to $8.4 billion, facing tough comparisons against last year's M4 launches. Wearables, home, and accessories slipped 2.2% to $11.5 billion, partly because AirPods Pro 3 ran into supply constraints. Apple believes that category would have grown without those shortages.Cook acknowledged Apple is in "supply chase mode" after December's demand blew past internal forecasts. The constraint stems from advanced 3-nanometer chip production, and Cook said it's "difficult to predict when supply and demand will balance."Memory pricing is another headache. While it barely dented Q1 margins, Apple expects a bigger hit in Q2. The company guided gross margins of 48% to 49% for the March quarter, with overall revenue growth projected at 13% to 16%.Apple confirmed its collaboration with Google will power a "more personalized Siri" arriving later this year. Cook framed it as a way to "unlock a lot of experiences" while maintaining Apple's privacy standards through on-device processing and private cloud compute.The company declined to share financial details of the Google arrangement, but Cook emphasised Apple will keep running AI workloads both locally and in its own data centres.Cook summed it up simply: "I have every confidence that our best work is yet to come."