Apple posts record June quarter as Cook warns of '100-year flood' in memory prices

Apple reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of $109.4 billion, up 16% year over year and its strongest June quarter ever, the company said on July 30.

The record was overshadowed by a warning from outgoing Chief Executive Tim Cook, who on his final earnings call as CEO described AI-driven memory-chip demand as a ‘100-year flood’ in pricing. Apple paid more for memory in the June quarter than the prior one and expects further increases, Cook said.

The stakes are concrete: Apple expects supply constraints to significantly affect September-quarter revenue across iPhone, iPad and Mac. More than 100% of the sequential change in gross margin was attributable to memory costs, Apple said, and Cook noted the DRAM market has only three suppliers.

For the quarter just reported, the numbers held up. Diluted earnings were $2.02 a share, up 29%, with a gross margin of 50.1% that included roughly two percentage points from tariff refunds.

Cook framed the squeeze as a demand-forecasting problem driven by AI data centers’ appetite for memory, not a shortage among Apple’s own suppliers. The company plans to partially offset the higher costs through inventory benefits and lower prices on non-memory components.

The warning matters beyond Apple. If the world’s largest hardware buyer is paying up for memory it cannot fully secure, smaller device makers with less purchasing power face a harder squeeze into the holiday quarter.