CEO Transition Sparks Growth: A Look at $111B Revenue

Apple is wrapping up April with the announcement of its Q2 2026 earnings, marking the first three months of 2026, and as usual it’s shattering all previous records with overall revenue of $111 billion — a nearly 17% increase from the year-ago quarter and the first time Q2 earnings have crossed the $100 billion threshold.

It’s also notable that this is the first earnings call following this month’s bombshell news that Apple CEO Tim Cook will be leaving the CEO’s office in September, ending his 15-year tenure and handing the reins over to hardware engineering chief John Ternus.

Cook kicked off the earnings call that followed the quarterly results by reflecting briefly on his 28 years with Apple and 15 years as CEO and thanking investors for their support over the years. He also noted that this will be his 89th earnings call, although he’ll have one more to go in July, making an even 90. He expressed extreme confidence in Ternus, who also joined the call for a brief “cameo” to introduce himself as the CEO-to-be and expressed his enthusiasm for what lies ahead, including an incredible product roadmap — which he naturally declined to talk about.

Cook then returned to highlight the lineup of exciting new products Apple launched during the quarter, while adding how the growth has been incredible despite supply constraints, particularly for the iPhone 17 lineup, which continues to see stellar double-digit growth even in the second quarter after its launch.

The Numbers

Apple’s second quarter covers the time frame from January to March, since its fiscal year runs from October to September, and it’s typically the company’s slowest quarter, as it comes on the heels of a busy holiday season and it’s typically punctuated by fewer new product launches.

That wasn’t so much the case this year, thanks to an exciting week at the start of March that saw the iPhone 17e, M4 iPad Air, M5 Pro and Max MacBook Pro, M5 MacBook Air, two new Studio Displays, and the unprecedented $599 MacBook Neo. However, it’s notable that most of these products didn’t go on sale until nearly half way through the month, yet they still seemingly contributed to a record-breaking second quarter.

Apple posted revenue of $111.18 billion, a 16.6% jump from the $95.3 billion in Q2 2025. As usual, that blew past Wall Street’s expectations, which had predicted only 9.5% growth, with revenue reaching $102.93 billion.

This is almost double the $58.3 billion that Apple earned in Q2 2020, which was the quarter before the COVID pandemic began locking things down. It made a nice climb to $89.5 billion in Q2 2021, but its high watermark before this year was actually Q2 2022, when it posted $97.28 billion. The numbers hovered around the $90-95 billion mark after that, so this year’s revenue is a significant jump from what was looking to become a trend.

Unlike Q1 2026, Apple posted growth in all five of its categories, with the iPhone growing by almost as much as it did last quarter, and Services showing even greater growth, hitting an all-time revenue record of $30.98 billion thanks to a surge in iCloud+ and Apple TV subscriptions. Meanwhile, the iPad, Mac, and Wearables categories (which also includes Home and Accessories) saw respectable single-digit growth, with iPad revenue buoyed by the continued success of the M5 iPad Pro and the budget-friendly A16 iPad.

The distribution between the categories remained roughly the same, although the iPhone once again took the majority share at 51% of overall revenue, returning to the dominance it enjoyed in Q2 2024.

Surprised by Mac

Apple CEO Tim Cook once again touched on how March saw more people switching to the Mac than ever and the MacBook Neo is selling much better than expected, but he didn’t give all the credit for that to Apple’s most affordable laptop, since Apple launched three other MacBooks around the same time.

During the Q&A session that follows the earnings report, Cook expressed a few times how the MacBook Neo shattered even Apple’s wildest expectations. At one point, he described the customer response as “off the charts,” and said that even though Apple was “very bullish” before announcing it, the MacBook Neo still managed to sell faster than Apple has been able to keep up.