Apple’s Mac revenue rose 24% to $10.792 billion in the September quarter, while iPad fell 10% to $6.229 billion and Wearables, Home and Accessories fell 8% to $8.300 billion, according to the fourth-quarter results Apple filed with the SEC on 2 November. Growth rates are our arithmetic from the release.
For fiscal 2026 as a whole, Mac revenue of $37.929 billion was $2.352 billion more than Wearables, Home and Accessories, at $35.577 billion. In fiscal 2025 the wearables category was the larger by $1.978 billion, and in fiscal 2024 by $7.021 billion, by our arithmetic from Apple’s releases. iPhone revenue was $57.583 billion in the quarter, up 17%, a September-quarter record according to the company, out of total revenue of $114.5 billion.
Business Pill · Distribution Advantage
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on distribution advantage. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Apple’s results.
The key insight: By our arithmetic, Apple’s Mac brought in $2.352 billion more revenue than Wearables, Home and Accessories in fiscal 2026, after trailing that category by $7.021 billion in fiscal 2024: Mac revenue rose 26.5% over the two years while wearables fell 3.9%.
Products revenue was $82.904 billion in the quarter, against $73.716 billion a year earlier. Of the $9.188 billion increase, iPhone added $8.558 billion and Mac $2.066 billion, while iPad lost $723 million and Wearables, Home and Accessories $713 million, by our arithmetic. iPhone accounted for 93% of the rise.
The gap between the fastest- and slowest-growing product lines was 34 percentage points: Mac up 23.7%, iPad down 10.4%, our arithmetic. Services revenue rose 10% to $31.573 billion, which Apple called a new all-time high.
As a share of products revenue, iPhone went to 69.5% from 66.5% and Mac to 13.0% from 11.8%. iPad and Wearables, Home and Accessories together fell to 17.5% from 21.7%, by our arithmetic.
Wall St Engine, in a post on X after the release, listed estimates of $9.69 billion for Mac, $6.83 billion for iPad and $8.99 billion for Wearables; the post did not name the source of the estimates. On those figures Mac came in $1.10 billion above the estimate, and iPad and Wearables $0.60 billion and $0.69 billion below, our arithmetic.
Apple’s annual revenue from Mac, iPad and Wearables, Home and Accessories in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2026, in $ billion, from its quarterly earnings releases (8-K Exhibit 99.1) of 30 October 2025 and 2 November 2026. Growth rates are our arithmetic. Mac revenue exceeded Wearables, Home and Accessories by $2.352 billion in fiscal 2026, after trailing it by $7.021 billion in fiscal 2024.Animated: Apple’s Mac revenue minus Wearables, Home and Accessories revenue over trailing four quarters, September 2025 to September 2026, in $ billion. Our arithmetic from the net sales by category in Apple’s quarterly earnings releases.
Five Quarters of the Mix
Taken from Apple’s last five quarterly releases, Mac revenuegrowth year over year was 12.7% in the September 2025 quarter, then minus 6.7%, plus 5.7%, plus 28.7% and plus 23.7% in the four quarters of fiscal 2026, our arithmetic.
iPad went from flat to plus 6.3% and plus 8.0%, then minus 5.9% in the June quarter and minus 10.4% in September. Wearables, Home and Accessories went from minus 0.3% to minus 2.2%, plus 5.0%, plus 6.5% and minus 7.9%, by our arithmetic.
The categories are seasonal. In the December 2025 quarter Wearables, Home and Accessories brought in $11.493 billion against $8.386 billion for Mac. In the March, June and September quarters Mac was the larger of the two, at $8.399 billion, $10.352 billion and $10.792 billion.
Over trailing four-quarter periods, which remove the seasonality, Mac revenue minus Wearables, Home and Accessories revenue was minus $1.978 billion at September 2025, then minus $2.325 billion, minus $2.254 billion, minus $427 million and plus $2.352 billion at September 2026, by our arithmetic from the five releases.
Products Margin Against Services Margin
Apple reports gross margin for products and services, not for each device. By our arithmetic from the statements, products gross margin was 37.2% in the quarter, against 36.2% a year earlier, and services gross margin was 76.0%, against 75.3%.
In dollars, products earned $30.840 billion of gross margin and services $23.980 billion. Services supplied 43.7% of gross margin on 27.6% of revenue, our arithmetic. Products gross margin in the three earlier quarters of fiscal 2026 was 40.7%, 38.7% and 40.1%.
Apple put company gross margin at 47.9%, “including a favorable impact of approximately 1 percentage point from tariff refunds”. The release does not split that effect between products and services.
What the Release Says About the Mac and AI
Chief executive John Ternus said in the release: “We also just introduced a whole new generation of hardware for the home and brought Touch to Mac for the first time. Together with the all-new Siri AI, it’s an incredible lineup to carry us into the holiday season.”
The release does not say what drove Mac growth or the iPad and wearables declines, and gives no unit figures. It attributes no category revenue to Siri or any AI feature. Chief financial officer Kevan Parekh said the installed base of active devices “reached a new all-time high across all major product categories and geographic segments”.
As we read it, the quarter’s products growth came almost entirely from iPhone, which supplied 93% of the $9.188 billion rise by our arithmetic; the Mac’s $2.066 billion gain was larger than the $1.436 billion that iPad and Wearables, Home and Accessories lost between them.
As we read it, the margin gap between devices and services held: services earned a 76.0% gross margin against 37.2% for products, and supplied 43.7% of gross margin on 27.6% of revenue, by our arithmetic from the statements.
As we read it, the release draws no line between Mac revenue and AI: Ternus named Touch on the Mac and the all-new Siri AI in the holiday lineup, but Apple attributes no category’s revenue to either.
John Ternus, Apple CEO, Q4 FY2026 earnings release
“We also just introduced a whole new generation of hardware for the home and brought Touch to Mac for the first time”
Three Implications
FOR MAC CHIP AND COMPONENT SUPPLIERS Mac revenue was $10.792 billion in the September quarter, up 24%, and $37.929 billion for fiscal 2026, up from $33.708 billion, according to the release.
FOR WEARABLES AND HOME-DEVICE SUPPLIERS Wearables, Home and Accessories revenue was $8.300 billion in the quarter, down 8%, and $35.577 billion for the year, against $35.686 billion, according to the release.
FOR INVESTORS TRACKING THE MIX iPhone was 69.5% of products revenue in the quarter, against 66.5% a year earlier, and iPad 7.5% against 9.4%, by our arithmetic from the release.
The Business Engineer Lens
This story maps onto the Business Engineer framework The AI Supercycle.
The framework describes its Layer 8, Distribution, as “The surfaces through which AI reaches end users”.
As we read it, Apple’s device categories are such a surface, and in the September quarter its products mix moved toward iPhone and Mac and away from iPad and Wearables, Home and Accessories. The framework was published in June 2026 and does not discuss these results.
The release does not explain why Mac grew or why iPad and Wearables, Home and Accessories shrank, and it gives no margin by device. It does not say whether on-device AI features affected Mac demand. Apple gave no guidance in the release, and this piece covers the filed release only, not the analyst call.
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In Apple’s September quarter, Mac revenue rose 24% to $10.8 billion while iPad and Wearables, Home and Accessories both fell. Over fiscal 2026, Mac brought in $2.352 billion more than Wearables, Home and Accessories, after trailing it by $7.021 billion two years earlier, by our arithmetic. iPhone supplied 93% of the quarter’s products growth.
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A note on sourcing. Every company figure comes from Apple’s quarterly earnings releases, filed with the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 to its 8-K reports of 30 October 2025 and 29 January, 30 April, 30 July and 2 November 2026, read in full on EDGAR on 2 November. Estimates are as listed in a Wall St Engine post on X, which did not name their source. Shares, margins, differences and growth rates are our arithmetic. We did not contact Apple.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
