Apple reports fourth-quarter earnings after the bell Thursday. It’s the end of Apple’s fiscal year, and it’s the first quarter with sales from the September launch of the iPhone 16.
Here’s what to expect, according to LSEG consensus estimates:
Earnings per share: $1.60
Revenue: $94.58 billion
The most critical item will be what Apple signals to investors about its December quarter, which is its largest seasonal sales period of the year. That will set the tone about the current iPhone sales cycle and whether it represents a chance for revenue growth driven by the launch of Apple Intelligence.
Apple doesn’t provide official guidance, but it typically offers forecast data points on a call with analysts that suggest whether the company expects sales growth and how some of its product lines might fare — especially the iPhone, which still accounts for a majority of Apple’s sales.
Without Apple’s official guidance and sales, investors parse surveys and shipping dates on Apple’s website to get a clue.
Some analysts are pointing to signs so far as “mixed.”
“To be clear, we have not heard of any iPhone build cuts in our checks, but after a month of tracking iPhone 16 demand indicators, we’d characterize iPhone demand as mixed,” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring in a note Oct. 22.
Other analysts are watching for when exactly Apple Intelligence will start to boost sales. Apple Intelligence is rolling out in pieces over the next few months. It’s available in American English now, but will add support for German, Italian, Korean, Chinese, French, Japanese and Spanish next year, Apple says.
“While iPhone sales will be on everybody’s mind when AAPL reports, the stream of data points indicates that there is little reason to believe an upgrade cycle has started,” wrote D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria in a note this week. “That should be expected, as Apple Intelligence features (the only reason to upgrade) have yet to be rolled out in a significant way.”
U.S. carriers, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, have also seemed unexcited about an Apple Intelligence upgrade cycle.
“We’re still waiting, obviously, for the software release and whether or not that software release drives interest in the consumer base,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said on an earnings call last week.
Sales in greater China were one of the weakest parts of Apple’s most recent quarterly report, declining 6% in the face of increased pressure from Chinese rivals.
“We believe even with new iPhone launch, Apple still faces pressure from Huawei, and we don’t expect the competition to ease any time soon,” Citi analyst Malif Atik wrote in a note this week.
But research firm Counterpoint Research told CNBC in October that iPhone sales, especially for the lower-priced devices, were strong in China.
“We’re seeing strong iPhone 16 series unit sales in China, up 20% compared to iPhone 15 series during its first three weeks of sales last year,” a Counterpoint representative said.
Investors will also look closely at Apple’s “wearables” category, which includes its Apple Watch and AirPods headphones. Both of those product lines saw new models hit store shelves during the quarter, including Apple Watches with bigger screens and low-end AirPods with noise canceling.
The new products could reverse the trend of Apple’s wearables sales declining on a year-over-year basis for four straight quarters.
Overall, analysts polled by LSEG expect about 5.6% revenue growth on an annual basis to about $95 billion in revenue.
That’s in line with what Apple signaled in August. Apple also said at the time that its services unit — the company’s catch-all, high-margin unit that includes everything from Major League Soccer subscriptions to Google search deals and extended iPhone warranties — would rise about 14% during the quarter, continuing its steady growth.
Thursday’s report will also likely be the last with CFO Luca Maestri. Apple said in August that Maestri will step down Jan. 1 and be replaced by longtime lieutenant Kevan Parekh. Maestri won’t be leaving Apple, though, and will retain oversight of some teams focusing on IT, real estate, and security.
Google-owned YouTube on Monday said it may remove channels including Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News and Fox Sports from its TV streaming platform if it doesn’t reach an agreement with Fox Corporation.
YouTube TV’s renewal date with Fox is coming on Wednesday, and while the two companies have been in ongoing negotiations, they’ve been unable to reach a deal, the YouTube team wrote in a blog post. The company also emailed YouTube TV subscribers about the potential fall out with Fox.
“Fox is asking for payments that are far higher than what partners with comparable content offerings receive,” YouTube wrote in the blog. “Our priority is to reach a deal that reflects the value of their content and is fair for both sides without passing on additional costs to our subscribers.”
If YouTube is unable to reach a new agreement by 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, the Fox channels will become unable on YouTube TV, the Google company said. YouTube pays broadcasters like Fox to carry their channels, and a blackout could have implications on advertisers and millions of viewers who cut their cords to stream Fox’s various channels on YouTube TV.
“While Fox remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with Google’s YouTube TV, we are disappointed that Google continually exploits its outsized influence by proposing terms that are out of step with the marketplace,” the media company said in a statement.
The Fox standoff represents the latest contract dispute between content companies and delivery networks as viewers increasingly ditch cable.
In February,Paramount Globalnotified YouTube TV subscribers that more than 20 channels including CBS, BET, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon could go dark on the service if the two didn’t reach a deal. Shortly after, YouTube TV and Paramount announced a multi-year distribution deal.
YouTube TV’s base plan costs $82.99 per month and includes over 100 live channels and unlimited cloud DVR. YouTube said a key part of its commitment to users is its partnership with content providers like Fox, “which allows us to carry a wide variety of channels.”
If Fox does go offline for an extended period of time, YouTube will give its members a $10 credit, the Google company wrote. Users will also be able to watch Fox content by signing up for Fox One, Fox’s streaming service, the blog said.
YouTube recently overtook Netflix, which has a market cap of $515 billion, as the top streaming platform in terms of audience engagement. Google does not provide official subscriber numbers for YouTube TV, but in its February 2024 letter, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that the service had more than 8 million subscribers. MoffettNathanson principal analyst Michael Nathanson has estimated that YouTube TV has approximately 9.4 million paying subscribers.
The lawsuit, filed by Musk’s AI startup xAI and its social network business X, alleges Apple and OpenAI have “colluded” to maintain monopolies in the smartphone and generative AI markets.
Musk’s xAI acquired X in March in an all-stock transaction.
It accuses Apple of deprioritizing so-called “super apps” and generative AI chatbot competitors, such as xAI’s Grok, in its App Store rankings, while favoring OpenAI by integrating its ChatGPT chatbot into Apple products.
“In a desperate bid to protect its smartphone monopoly, Apple has joined forces with the company that most benefits from inhibiting competition and innovation in AI: OpenAI, a monopolist in the market for generative AI chatbots,” according to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement: “This latest filing is consistent with Mr. Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment.”
Representatives from Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Tesla CEO launched xAI in 2023 in a bid to compete with OpenAI and other leading chatbot makers.
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Musk earlier this month threatened to sue Apple for “an unequivocal antitrust violation,” saying in a post on X that the company “is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store.”
After Musk threatened to sue Apple, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded: “This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn’t like.”
An Apple spokesperson previously said its App Store was designed to be “fair and free of bias,” and that the company features “thousands of apps” using a variety of signals.
Apple last year partnered with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into iPhone, iPad, Mac laptop and desktop products.
Several users replied to Musk’s post on X via its Community Notes feature saying that rival chatbot apps such as DeepSeek and Perplexity were ranked No. 1 on the App Store after Apple and OpenAI announced their partnership.
The lawsuit is the latest twist in an ongoing clash between Musk and Altman. Musk co-founded OpenAI alongside Altman in 2015, before leaving the startup in 2018 due to disagreements over OpenAI’s direction.
Musk sued OpenAI and Altman last year, accusing them of breach of contract by putting commercial interests ahead of its original mission to develop AI “for the benefit of humanity broadly.”
In a counter claim, OpenAI has alleged that Musk and xAI engaged in “harassment” through litigation, attacks on social media and in the press, and through a “sham bid” to buy the ChatGPT-maker for $97.4 billion designed to harm the company’s business relationships.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is seen on stage next to a small robot during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia announced Monday that its latest robotics chip module, the Jetson AGX Thor, is now on sale for $3,499 as a developer kit.
The company calls the chip a “robot brain.” The first kits ship next month, Nvidia said last week, and the chips will allow customers to create robots.
After a company uses the developer kit to prototype their robot, Nvidia will sell Thor T5000 modules that can be installed in production-ready robots. If a company needs more than 1,000 Thor chips, Nvidia will charge $2,999 per module.
CEO Jensen Huang has said robotics is the company’s largest growth opportunity outside of artificial intelligence, which has led to the Nvidia’s overall sales more than tripling in the past two years.
“We do not build robots, we do not build cars, but we enable the whole industry with our infrastructure computers and the associated software,” said Deepu Talla, Nvidia’s vice president of robotics and edge AI, on a call with reporters Friday.
The Jetson Thor chips are based on a Blackwell graphics processor, which is Nvidia’s current generation of technology used in its AI chips, as well as its chips for computer games.
Nvidia said that its Jetson Thor chips are 7.5 times faster than its previous generation. That allows them to run generative AI models, including large language models and visual models that can interpret the world around them, which is essential for humanoid robots, Nvidia said. The Jetson Thor chips are equipped with 128GB of memory, which is essential for big AI models.
Companies including Agility Robotics, Amazon, Meta and Boston Dynamics are using its Jetson chips, Nvidia said. Nvidia has also invested in robotics companies such as Field AI.
However, robotics remains a small business for Nvidia, accounting for about 1% of the company’s total revenue, despite the fact that it has launched several new robot chips since 2014. But it’s growing fast.
Nvidia recently combined its business units to group its automotive and robotics divisions into the same line item. That unit reported $567 million in quarterly sales in May, which represented a 72% increase on an annual basis.
The company said its Jetson Thor chips can be used for self-driving cars as well, especially from Chinese brands. Nvidia calls its car chips Drive AGX, and while they are similar to its robotics chips, they run an operating system called Drive OS that’s been tuned for automotive purposes.