Tim Cook Marks Final Earnings Call as Apple CEO

Tim Cook closed out his tenure as Apple’s CEO today the same way he’s opened and closed 89 earnings calls before it with a moment for the numbers, and one final moment for the people who got him there. During Apple’s fiscal Q3 2026 call, Cook confirmed this was his last as chief executive before handing the reins to John Ternus on September 1, marking the end of a run that started in 2011.

Before diving into the quarter’s results, Cook thanked long-term shareholders, the analysts who’ve tracked Apple’s numbers call after call, and the employees behind the company’s products, closing with a simple line: this would be his final earnings call, and Ternus would lead them going forward. He described the leadership transition as smooth and said he felt more optimistic about Apple’s direction than he had in some time, notably coming from someone who’s spent 15 years choosing his words carefully on these calls.

The numbers he handed off are strong ones. Apple posted $109.4 billion in fiscal Q3 revenue, beating Wall Street’s expectations, with iPhone revenue climbing to $54.25 billion, up 22% year-over-year. Mac revenue jumped 29% to $10.35 billion, a surge largely credited to the MacBook Neo, the machine Ternus himself championed as head of hardware engineering a fitting detail given who’s about to run the company. Services hit an all-time quarterly record of $30.98 billion, continuing three straight years of growth and now accounting for more than a quarter of Apple’s total revenue.

Despite the beat, Apple’s stock slid roughly 8% in after-hours trading, and the reason wasn’t the results themselves, it was what’s coming next. Cook told analysts Apple expects memory costs to keep climbing, a pressure that’s already forced price increases across Macs, iPads, and other hardware this year, with more likely ahead as the global chip shortage continues squeezing margins industry-wide.

The scale of what Cook is leaving behind is easy to lose in the routine of a quarterly call. When he took over as CEO in 2011, Apple was a fraction of what it is now; the company’s valuation today runs roughly 14 times higher, and Apple returned more than $1 trillion to shareholders through buybacks during his tenure alone. Apple also confirmed a $0.27-per-share dividend payable August 13, keeping the payout steady even as the leadership chapter closes.

Ternus, a 25-year Apple veteran who joined the product design team in 2001, stayed largely quiet on today’s call, a low-key debut for someone about to become the public face of the world’s most valuable company. That contrast is really the story here: Cook spent his final call doing what he’s always done, walking through the numbers methodically, while the bigger question of how Ternus runs the AI race Apple is still catching up on starts the moment this call ends.