“Stockholm Syndrome? Never heard of her…” - iSheep, probably… 

It’s Friday, Halloween… and Tim Apple just posted another quarter doing what he does best… beating expectations, and somehow managing to convince everyone that losing China sales is totally fine because the iPhone 17 is "so hot right now."

(Source: Imgflip) 

In short, the Cupertino cult leader announced earnings per share of $1.85 (vs. $1.77 expected) on revenue of $102.5 billion, which sounds impressive until you realize their iPhone sales of $49.03 billion missed the $49.3 billion target. Sounds legit. With that said, revenue in Xi’s house came in at $14.49 billion when analysts were expecting $16.43 billion. Ooof. That's nearly $2 billion of "oops, we're getting our asses kicked by Huawei."

(Source: Yahoo Finance) 

But, but, but… wait, there is a silver lining here: Cook went full send on the earnings call, promising record December quarter revenue and claiming the iPhone 17 is facing supply constraints because demand is just that insane. According to some third-party data, the iPhone 17 outsold the iPhone 16 by 14% in the first 10 days in the US and China. So, China isn’t the problem then? Asking for a friend. 

Apparently Cook made a little field trip to Beijing, saw some people at Apple Stores, and decided that was enough to return to growth in Q1. That’s it. Which is why now, the is projecting 10-12% revenue growth for the December quarter, which is significantly higher than what analysts expected. Translation: Christmas is gonna be lit for Apple shareholders. Of course, we’ll see what actually happens… but as of now, Apple is back being apart of the $4 trillion club (alongside Microsoft and Nvidia, though MSFT already fumbled back below that threshold). Services pulled in $28.7 billion and beat expectations, so at least the subscription money printer is working as intended. 

(Source: Giphy) 

Oh, and remember Apple Intelligence (a.k.a. The AI thing that was supposed to make Siri less useless)? The "more personalized Siri" just got pushed to 2026. But Cook says they're "making good progress," which definitely maybe inspire confidence. So yeah… that’s Apple’s showcase. And in the end, Apple missed where it mattered, beat where it could, and Wall Street just shrugged and said "sure, why not." The walled garden remains undefeated. Until next time, friends…

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Microsoft and Apple as mentioned in the article.