Apple’s revenue grew 11.7% from a year earlier in its September quarter, to $114.477 billion, after 16.4% in the June quarter, according to its earnings release filed with the SEC on 2 November. Bloomberg reported the result under the headline “Apple Growth Decelerates With China Sales Missing Estimates”. To test whether the slowing holds once the year-ago base is taken into account, we added each quarter’s growth to the growth of the same quarter a year before. By that two-year stacked measure, our arithmetic, Apple’s growth fell to 19.7% from 26.0%.
The year-ago base was easier, not harder: revenue grew 7.9% in the September 2025 quarter against 9.6% in the June 2025 quarter. A 1.7-point easier comparison came with a 4.7-point drop in growth, so base effects do not explain the slowdown in total revenue, by our arithmetic.
Business Pill · Compound Annual Growth Rate
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on compound annual growth rates. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Apple’s results.
The key insight: By our arithmetic, Apple’s September-quarter growth fell 4.7 points against a year-ago base that was 1.7 points easier, which is why the two-year stack dropped 6.3 points, the largest fall among the nine stacks we computed.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote that Apple “posted September quarter revenue that narrowly topped analysts’ estimates, even as sales in the key Chinese market fell short of projections”. He reported that analysts had estimated $113.5 billion on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The rest of the article is behind Bloomberg’s paywall; we read its opening paragraphs.
Apple’s total net sales growth from a year earlier and its two-year stack (this quarter’s growth plus the same quarter’s growth a year before), September 2024 quarter to September 2026 quarter, our arithmetic from its quarterly earnings releases (8-K Exhibit 99.1). The stack fell to 19.7% from 26.0%.Animated: Apple’s two-year stacked total revenuegrowth, September 2024 quarter to September 2026 quarter, our arithmetic from its quarterly earnings releases.
Two-Year Stacked Growth, Quarter by Quarter
We used the total net sales lines of Apple’s 13 quarterly releases since November 2023. The two-year stack ran at 14.0% in the September 2025 quarter, then 19.6%, 21.7% and 26.0% in the three quarters of fiscal 2026 to June, before 19.7% in the September 2026 quarter, all our arithmetic. The fall of 6.3 points was the largest quarter-to-quarter drop among the nine stacks we computed.
Measured directly, September-quarter revenue was 20.6% above the September 2024 quarter’s $94.930 billion. In the June quarter the two-year gain was 27.6%, against $85.777 billion in the June 2024 quarter, our arithmetic.
The level remains high. AppleInsider framed the quarter as beating “the Covid-fueled $111.4 billion earned in Q1 2021”; Apple’s release for that quarter gives total net sales of $111.439 billion for the December 2020 quarter, so the September 2026 quarter was 2.7% larger, our arithmetic.
Greater China: The Base Got Easier and Growth Still Slowed
Greater China sales were $17.539 billion, up 21.0%, after 22.4% in the June quarter; our Greater China piece covers the one-year series. The year-ago base was very different: Greater China fell 3.6% in the September 2025 quarter but grew 4.4% in the June 2025 quarter. On the two-year stack, Greater China went to 17.4% from 26.8%, and its sales were 16.7% above the September 2024 quarter, against 27.8% two years on in June, all our arithmetic.
Outside Greater China, Apple’s revenue grew 10.2% in the September quarter, against 15.2% in the June quarter, by our arithmetic from the segment table. The slowing therefore shows up both inside and outside China.
Services: Mostly a Base Effect
Services are the exception. Services growth of 9.8% was the lowest of 13 quarters, but it was measured against 15.1% growth in the September 2025 quarter, the fastest services growth in eight quarters at that point. The two-year services stack moved to 24.9% from 25.3% in the June quarter, a 0.4-point change, against a 2.3-point drop in one-year growth, our arithmetic. Across the nine stacks, services ranged from 24.9% to 28.2%.
Deferred Revenue: The Prepaid Layer
Apple’s balance sheet carries deferred revenue, money for services it has not yet delivered. Its fiscal 2025 annual report says “Services net sales include amortization of the deferred value of services bundled in the sales price of certain products”, naming iCloud, Siri and Maps as bundled services, and describes AppleCare as “a portfolio of fee-based service and support products”.
The current deferred revenue line on the September-quarter balance sheet was $9.636 billion, against $9.055 billion a year earlier, up 6.4%, our arithmetic, while services revenue grew 9.8%. It was 6.2% higher in June and 4.0% higher in March, after growth of 9.8% to 12.0% from March 2025 to December 2025, our arithmetic from Apple’s 10-Q and 10-K balance sheets via SEC XBRL data. Its growth was below services growth in 12 of the 13 quarters since September 2023.
Total deferred revenue, including the non-current part, was $14.9 billion at 27 June 2026, according to the June-quarter 10-Q, against $13.6 billion a year earlier, up 9.6%, our arithmetic. The 10-Q says Apple “expects 64% of total deferred revenue to be realized in less than a year”. The release’s balance sheet shows only the current part for September, and the fiscal 2026 10-K had not been filed when we read the release.
As we read it, the base-effect test splits the quarter in two: total revenue and Greater China slowed on a two-year view, while services, the line with the lowest one-year growth, held close to its two-year range.
As we read it, the deferred revenue line does not point the other way: its 6.4% growth in the September quarter was below services growth, as it was in 12 of the 13 quarters since September 2023, by our arithmetic.
As we read it, the level and the pace measure different things: the September quarter was 2.7% larger than Apple’s December 2020 holiday quarter, while its two-year growth was the lowest since the December 2025 quarter, by our arithmetic.
Kevan Parekh, Apple CFO, Q4 FY2026 earnings release
“our installed base of active devices reached a new all-time high across all major product categories and geographic segments”
Three Implications
FOR READERS OF THE HEADLINE GROWTH RATE One-year growth fell to 11.7% from 16.4%; adding back the year-ago base, the two-year stack fell to 19.7% from 26.0%, by our arithmetic.
FOR THE GREATER CHINA STORY Greater China’s two-year stack fell to 17.4% from 26.8% even though the year-ago quarter had shrunk 3.6%, by our arithmetic from the segment table.
FOR SERVICES The services stack was 24.9% against 25.3% in the June quarter; the one-year rate of 9.8% was measured against 15.1% a year earlier, by our arithmetic.
The framework puts it this way: “Your product stops being the thing companies buy and becomes the thing other systems assume exists.”
As we read it, Apple’s services and deferred revenue lines are the part of its revenue that rides on devices already sold, which is why their two-year growth moved less than device-led revenue this quarter. The framework was published in December 2025 and does not discuss Apple’s results.
Two-year stacking adds two growth rates; it is a way to read base effects, not a figure Apple reports. Apple’s release gives no guidance and does not explain the slower growth. The deferred revenue line mixes bundled services, AppleCare and subscriptions, and Apple does not split it, so it cannot show which services slowed. We do not know the Bloomberg consensus figure for Greater China, and we had not heard the earnings call when this was written.
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By our arithmetic, Apple’s two-year stacked revenue growth fell to 19.7% from 26.0% in the September quarter, even though the year-ago base was easier, and Greater China’s stack fell to 17.4% from 26.8%. Services, at 24.9% from 25.3%, held close to steady on the same measure, while the prepaid deferred revenue line grew 6.4%.
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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 (November 2023 to 2 November 2026, and January 2021), its fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter financialstatements, its fiscal 2025 10-K and fiscal 2026 10-Q reports, and SEC XBRL data, read on 2 November. Bloomberg and AppleInsider are quoted from their own articles. Growth rates and two-year stacks 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.
