Apple's fiscal 2026 ended on September 26, 2026, and the company's annual report on Form 10-K, filed November 3, 2026, sets out a year in which net income reached $132.2 billion and diluted earnings per share came to $8.98. The headline numbers are the easy part. The more useful question for a value investor is how the profit engine behaved from quarter to quarter, because the year did not unfold evenly.
The full-year picture
According to the 10-K's income statement, fiscal 2026 revenue was $478.8 billion, gross profit was $233.6 billion, operating income was $158.1 billion and income before taxes was $159.2 billion. Income tax expense for the year was $27.1 billion, which takes net income to $132.2 billion. Against fiscal 2025, as reported in the prior-year 10-K, net income was $112.0 billion, diluted EPS was $7.46, revenue was $416.2 billion and gross profit was $195.2 billion. Fiscal 2026 therefore carried higher revenue, gross profit and earnings than the year before.
A strong first quarter, then a plateau
The fiscal first quarter, the December quarter, stands apart. In that period the company reported revenue of $143.8 billion, gross profit of $69.2 billion, operating income of $50.9 billion and net income of $42.1 billion, with diluted EPS of $2.84. The three quarters that followed were markedly lower and far more alike:
| Fiscal 2026 quarter | Revenue | Gross profit | Operating income | Net income | Diluted EPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 (ended Dec. 27, 2025) | $143.8B | $69.2B | $50.9B | $42.1B | $2.84 |
| Q2 (ended Mar. 28, 2026) | $111.2B | $54.8B | $35.9B | $29.6B | $2.01 |
| Q3 (ended Jun. 27, 2026) | $109.4B | $54.8B | $35.7B | $29.8B | $2.02 |
| Q4 (ended Sep. 26, 2026) | $114.5B | $54.8B | $35.6B | $30.7B | n/a in indexed data |
The pattern in the second through fourth quarters is worth dwelling on. Reported revenue moved within a band of roughly $109 billion to $114 billion, and gross profit printed at about $54.8 billion in each of those three quarters. Operating income held between about $35.6 billion and $35.9 billion. Net income rose modestly from $29.6 billion in the March quarter to $30.7 billion in the September quarter. In other words, once the December quarter had passed, the company's profit line stabilized at a level well below the first-quarter peak, and it did so while the top line itself was not flat.
The company did not disclose in the 10-K a single cause for the step-down between the first quarter and the quarters that followed, and this article does not attempt to assign one. The reported figures show the shape of the change: the first quarter carried roughly $69 billion of gross profit on $144 billion of revenue, while the later quarters each carried about $55 billion of gross profit on lower revenue. Readers who want the management explanation should go to the MD&A section of the 10-K and the quarterly 10-Q filings for the periods involved.
Taxes and the path from pre-tax income to earnings
Income before taxes followed the same uneven path. Reported pre-tax income was $51.0 billion in the first quarter, $35.8 billion in the second, $36.3 billion in the third and $36.1 billion in the fourth, totalling $159.2 billion for the year. Tax expense was $8.9 billion, $6.3 billion, $6.5 billion and $5.4 billion across the same quarters, or $27.1 billion for the full year. The fourth-quarter tax charge was the smallest of the four, which, together with a pre-tax figure that held close to the third quarter, is part of why net income edged up in the final quarter even as operating income was roughly flat. The 10-K's tax footnote is the place to examine the drivers of those quarterly differences.
What the numbers do and do not show
Apple finished fiscal 2026 with a larger revenue base, higher gross profit and higher earnings than in fiscal 2025, and its reported full-year results are internally consistent: the four quarterly net income figures sum to the $132.2 billion annual total, and pre-tax income less tax expense reconciles to the same figure. The December quarter was the high point of the year on every profit line the company reports, and the quarters that followed did not return to that level.
For a Buffett-style reader, the important distinction is between a single strong quarter and a durable run rate. The filings show that the second through fourth quarters clustered tightly around $30 billion of quarterly net income and $55 billion of quarterly gross profit. Whether that cluster represents the new baseline, or whether the December quarter reflected a seasonal or otherwise non-recurring peak, is a judgment the reported figures alone cannot settle. Investors weighing that question will want to read the segment disclosures, the revenue commentary and the risk factors in the 10-K side by side with these numbers before forming a view of their own.