[News] Apple Sees Holiday-Quarter Margins at 45%–46% as Memory Costs Soar; Inventory Jumps 154% Amid Stockpiling

What happened

Apple held its earnings call on November 2, the first under new CEO John Ternus, who described the surge in memory prices as “unprecedented,” noting Apple has taken steps to secure supplies. According to TechCrunch citing the company’s earnings, Apple’s total inventory jumped 31.1% QoQ and 154.3% YoY to $14.54 billion in fiscal 4Q26 as the company continued stockpiling components, particularly memory chips. Due to soaring memory chip prices, Apple expects fourth-quarter (holiday, December quarter) gross margins of 45%–46%, below Wall Street’s 47% forecast, with memory costs set to climb further in the December quarter; Apple expects price hikes introduced earlier this year — for Macs and iPads in late June and iPhones in September (a $100 iPhone increase) — to partly cushion the impact. Apple also projects revenue growth of 7%–10% YoY in 4Q26, ahead of analysts’ 6% estimate, with CFO Kevan Parekh expecting the period to mark Apple’s highest quarterly revenue on record. September-quarter revenue climbed 12% YoY from $102.5 billion a year earlier, and fourth-quarter iPhone revenue reached $57.58 billion, topping the $56.54 billion LSEG consensus estimate. Additionally, the CEO acknowledged that iPhone Duo is constrained with demand outpacing production and no clear timeline for supply-demand balance, with “a very small percentage” of units returned over screen issues and replaced by Apple; COO Sabih Khan warned that limited advanced-node chip availability is also constraining production across the iPhone, Mac and iPad lineups.

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Source and time

Source: TrendForce · 11/2/2026 · View original source