Apple delivered a solid June quarter on Thursday evening, with stocks even higher. However, the lack of actual artificial intelligence strategies strengthens investor enthusiasm. The stock remains AI's “Show Me” story. Nowadays, in a market driven by AI trade, everyone really cares. Apple's third quarter 2025 revenues, which ended in June, rose 10% year-on-year to $940.4 billion, surpassing the consensus estimate compiled by LSEG of $89.5 billion. According to LSEG, the company's quarterly revenue was the largest growth rate in December 2021, with earnings per share (EPS) rising 12% over the quarterly estimate of $1.43. Customs related expenses result in strong performance despite Apple seeing around $800 million in drugs. That was $100 million less than Apple CEO Tim Cook estimated in May. In a post-revenue call Thursday evening, Cook predicted a $1.1 billion negative impact from the September quarter tariffs. Why Apple owns the dominant hardware and growth services business, the management's net cash neutral strategy provides confidence that free cash flow will continue to fund dividends and buybacks. Competitors: Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Dell and HP Inc. Latest Buy: Starting April 8, 2014: Both sides of Apple's business – Products and Services – June quarter revenue and gross revenues were higher than expected, Apple once again achieved a new all-time high of installed bases of active devices in all product categories and all geographical regions. Meanwhile, the service set up new records with better total margin performance than expected. Don't forget that a small mistake in service revenue in the March quarter attacked quite violently at the time. So it was good to see the service change. In Cole, Cook said the company saw growth accelerate in “major markets” tracked by Apple, including large China and many emerging markets. He further stated that the company “set June quarter revenue records in more than 24 countries and territories, including the US, Canada, Latin America, Western Europe, the Middle East, India and South Asia.” As for China, it is clear that Chinese consumers still love Apple, and iPhone sales are gradually accelerating to set up a new record-installed base. Mainland China set a June quarter record for iPhone upgrades, and the iPhone held the top three spots in China's urban areas, according to WorldPanel (formerly Kantar). The MacBook Air was China's top selling laptop in the June quarter, while the Mac Mini was the top selling desktop there. Cook also touched on AI and reaffirmed his view that it was “one of the deepest technologies of our life.” He added that Apple Intelligence is integrated across the company's various platforms, and that the company is “significantly expanding” its investment in technology. Unfortunately, there were no more updates than we already know. However, Cook said the team continues to make progress with a more personalized SIRI and plans to launch an updated personal assistant within the next year. He also said, “We are open to M&As that accelerate our roadmap.” The statement did not directly address the direct report in June that Apple had an internal discussion about whether it would offer to buy AI startup confusion. However, Cook says that Apple is open to providing help. Given the strength of the AAPL YTD Mountain Apple YTD report and what appears to be expected to surpass expectations for the September quarter this year, it was not surprising to see inventory trading rise more than 2% in the after-hours session. That said, it's a relatively calm move, given the positive outcome at the end of Thursday and the stock's annual decline of 17%. The S&P 500 won nearly 8% in 2025. In our view, this is probably a reluctance for investors to be more optimistic until they make Apple's AI initiative more clear. We fully understand that view, but we also want to make the Apple Intelligence roadmap clearer and awaken to the news that Apple made a deal to win the confusion. These results remind us why we should stay in these times, even if these results are not the time to recommend stocks as shopping. Instead of being the first to adopt new technology, Apple will instead take the time to see what's out there and how consumers are responding, and choose to release a more refined version. If this is the case again, Apple will actually bring to the market the types of AI features that you should expect from this caliber company. Then, you can push the update to a legion of loyal users with a simple software update and become a serious player of personal AI. We know that the meta platform is trying to create more personal AI, but given Apple users are connecting deeply with iPhones and other devices, we believe there is a real opportunity to lead here. The company must run. So far, AI execution has left what is desired, but betting on Cook in the long run has really been a loser's gamble. I think that is true again. However, there's no choice but to maintain a 2 rating on equal terms as hold until you've made it clearer on the AI roadmap and the actual timeline for your upgrades to turn Siri into a conversation problem-solving digital assistant. It also maintains its price target of $240 per share, rising about 16% until closing price on Thursday, but 8% below the record closing of $259 on December 26, 2024. It was up 13.5% from last year, better than expected. Growth was seen across all geographic segments, with double-digit growth rates in emerging markets, including India, the Middle East, South Asia and Brazil. Apple provided June quarter records for upgrades to iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch. Mac sales rose nearly 15% in the quarter, breaking estimates, but the iPad, wearables, home and accessories segments fell year on year and missed. The service has achieved a new all-time high sales record, increasing double-digit numbers in both developed and emerging markets. Service revenues rose by more than 13% to $27.42 billion. Sales of cloud services have been accelerated one after another to a new record of record-highest revenue, driven by the strength of iCloud. Apple TV+ viewers were up double digits from the same period last year. App Store revenue also rose double digits from the previous year, setting a record for the June quarter. Additionally, Parekh has called new all-time highs in both transactional and paired accounts. Although Outlook Apple does not provide formal guidance, management said it expects revenue for the September quarter to be a single digit increase, high from mid-term compared to the period a year ago. According to LSEG, this appears to be better towards inline than the 3.3% growth that the streets were looking for year-on-year. Services revenue is expected to increase year-on-year, similar to an increase of over 13% in the June quarter. Street was expecting 11% growth in the September quarter compared to the same period last year. So this also appears to be better from inline than expected. According to FactSet, the gross profit margin for the September quarter is expected to range from 46% to 47%, which is better than the expected 45.7%. This includes the aforementioned estimated tariff-related headwinds of $1.1 billion. Management expects operating expenses to be between $15.6 billion and $15.8 billion for the September quarter, a little higher than expected at around $15.4 billion, according to FactSet. This guidance assumes that there is no deterioration in macroeconomic conditions and there will be no change in global tariff rates, policies, or enforcement. We also assume that Apple's revenue sharing agreement with Google remains intact. King's Ransom paid Apple for Google search priorities. This has been raised question due to the antitrust case against the government's alphabet. Capital allocation Apple ended the March quarter with $133 billion in cash and marketable securities. Excluding liabilities, net cash was $31 billion. During the quarter, Apple returned more than $27 billion to shareholders. This includes $3.9 billion in dividend equivalents and an additional $21 billion in stock repurchase. (Jim Cramer's charitable trusts are the long AAPL, META and Google. See the full list of stocks here.) As a Jim Cramer and a CNBC Investing Club subscriber, you will receive a trade warning before Jim can trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before purchasing or selling stocks in the Charitable Trust portfolio. If Jim talks about stocks on CNBC TV, he will wait 72 hours after issuing a trade alert before running the trade. The above investment club information is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, along with the disclaimer. 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