Thursday, January 29, 2026

A Blow-Out Quarter -- AAPL Earnings -- 1Q26 -- Live, January 29, 2026

Locator: 49872AAPL.

Tag: AAPL.

Earnings live at on CNBC, on the fly; errors likely.  

Entire post: on the fly. Expect many typographical and content errors. 

Blow-out quarter. Stunned. China -- a blowout quarter. Insane demand.

Apple set all-time records during the quarter for total revenue, earnings per share, iPhone revenue, and services revenue. Total revenue was up 16 percent year-over-year, while earnings per share rose by 19 percent. 

Links here:

Market reserving judgement, waiting for conference call and guidance.  

  • analyst all worried about costs of memory for Apple going forward

Apple is acquiring startup Q.AI: 

  • announced just before they announced earnings. 
  • an Israeli firm; also here;
  • $2 billion (a rounding error for Apple)
  • Q.AI: can read facial skin micro-movements
  • could be used to help Apple have non-verbal discussions with an AI assistant 

Analysts after earnings report:

  • First analyst:
    • stunned by the China numbers, absolutely crushed the quarter. 
    • all about the future 
  • Second analyst:
    • worried about the future
    • AI / Siri
  • Melissa Lee, CNBC host of "Fast Money":
    • worried about memory costs;
    • incredibly snarky comments; 
  • CNBC's Tim:
    • market doesn't think these numbers are sustainable 
  • Dan Nathan: 
    • more positive than usual
    • does mention that the price of "Micron will drop in half by the middle of this summer" --  Tim challenged him on that.

The numbers:

  • EPS: $2.84 / $2.67
  • 143.76 billion / $138.85.27 billion -- 16% jump;
  • $85.27 vs $88
  • iPhone sales: $85.3 billion; well head of the $78.3 billion analysts forecast;
    • same quarter last year: $69.1 billion 
  • Mac sales: $8.39 billion vs $8.95 billion
  • Apple iPad -- $8.6 billion vs $8.13 billion
  • other products: $11.49 billion / $12.04 billion
  • services (second-largest behind iPhone: $30.01 billion vs 3$0.07 billion (in line)
  • wearables: $11.5 billion 
  • gross margin: 48.2% /47.5%
  • China sales: up a whopping 38%!
    • weaker dollar
    • China government "opened" the door 

Cash pile: $144.80 billion 

Other:

  • iPhones up 23%
  • services pretty much in line 

China:

  • China a blow-out quarter. 
  • sales improved to $25.5 billion during the quarter
    • climbing nearly 38% y/y 

Earnings being reported on CNBC at: 3:31 p.m.

After hours: live -- most recent at the top --

  • last number for the evening: up $1.84 (at 4:46 p.m. CT)
  • continuing, earnings call yet to come: up $2.72 (at 3:57 p.m. CT)
  • continuing: up $8.42 (at 3:32 p.m. CT) 
  • just spiked: up $5.00 (at 3:31 p.m. CT)
  • down 38 cents (at 3:25 p.m. CT) 
  • down 98 cents (at 3:13 p.m. CT)

P/E, AAPL: 35. 

P/E's:

  • MU: 41 
  • AMD: 125 
  • INTC: n/a; most recent was 5,500
  • MSFT: 31 
  • CAT: 34
  • SCCO: 44
  • SNDK: n/a
  • NVDA: 48
  • TSM: 32
  • GM: 26
  • SLB: 21
  • F: 12
Posted by at