What to expect from Apple's Q3 2024 earnings on August 1

Apple will be releasing its quarterly financial results on August 1. As usual, it will be followed shortly after by the conference call with investors and analysts, held at 5:00 PM eastern time, with CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri answering queries.

AppleInsider will be listening to the conference call and reporting the financial results in full.

Last quarter: Q2 2024

In the last quarter, the second of Apple's fiscal year, the company beat analyst predictions.

For the second quarter, Apple's revenue reached $90.75 billion, down from the $94.8 billion reported in Q2 2023. The earnings per share of $1.53 is up from $1.52 in the year-ago quarter.

At the time, the Wall Street Consensus had Apple in a range of $82.32 billion to $86.15 billion, with an EPS of $1.50.

Last year: Q3 2023

The year-ago quarter is always the one that Apple's quarterly results are compared to. Apple managed to edge out predictions for that period, but it still had a difficult compare versus the year before.

Apple reported $81.8 billion in revenue for Q3 2023, which was a 1% YoY drop. It also reported an earnings per share of $1.26.

Revenue for iPhone was $39.67 billion, down 2% YoY, while iPad dropped 20% to $5.79 billion. Revenue for Mac was down 7% to $6.84 billion.

On the brighter side, Wearables, Home, and Accessories were up 2% to $8.08 billion, and Services continued its growth by 8% to $21.21 billion.

Q3 2024 events

Usually, Q3 is Apple's quietest quarter in the year, in part due to a lack of product introductions. For this period, there were a few, with one more significant than the rest.

In May, Apple brought out the new iPad Pro equipped with M4, alongside a new iPad Air with M2, as well as a 13-inch iPad Air. It also brought out the Apple Pencil Pro.

The iPad Pro is the only device with M4, and its launch means Macs with the chip could be on the horizon.

Product launches in Q2 also get their first full quarter of sales. For Q3, this means the MacBook Air upgrades from March.

The 13-inch and 15-inch models were updated to M3 under Apple's rolling Apple Silicon upgrades.

Arguably more important for Apple was WWDC, its annual developer conference. This year, Apple used the event to introduce Apple Intelligence, its push into generative AI that could cause big changes in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia in the fall.

Apple Intelligence had a phenomenal reception from analysts due to the potential for it to drive an iPhone supercycle, giving Apple's key product a considerable sales bump.

Wall Street Consensus

The Wall Street consensus refers to a survey of analysts. The results are averaged out to give a general opinion of where investors and analysts are leaning in their quarterly forecasts.

According to the estimates published by Yahoo Finance as of July 29, a group of 24 analysts offered an average revenue estimate of $93.29 billion. If accurate, this would result in an increase of 14% overall, when compared to 2023.

The estimate's range goes from a high of $98.48 billion to a low of $88.18 billion. Evidently even the most pessimistic of the group believes Apple's Q3 2024 will have year-over-year gains.

For the earnings per share, the group of 24 forecasts an average of $1.43, with a high of $1.51 and a low of $1.32.