Apple booked $111.2B in Q2 with Ternus on the call. Cook warned about RAMageddon.

Apple posted $111.2 billion in Q2 2026 revenue, up 17% year over year, on Wednesday. John Ternus joined the earnings call as the named CEO successor for the first time. Tim Cook used most of his airtime to warn about a coming memory-chip shortage the supply chain is already calling RAMageddon.

It is the cleanest record-and-warning quarter Apple has put up in years. The headline numbers are the strongest March quarter ever, with double-digit growth in every region; the forward-looking commentary tells investors to brace for margin pressure once the company’s stockpiled DRAM runs out. Ternus’s first call as CEO-elect lands directly in the middle of that pivot.

The headline numbers

Apple’s press release booked $111.2 billion in revenue and $2.01 in diluted earnings per share, up 22% from the year-ago period. Operating cash flow cleared $28 billion, a March-quarter record. Tim Cook’s prepared remark in the release framed the iPhone story directly: “iPhone achieved a March quarter revenue record, fueled by such extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17 lineup.” CFO Kevan Parekh added that “continued strong customer demand for our products and services once again helped us achieve a new all-time high for our installed base.” Services hit a new all-time high. The new iPhone 17e, M4-powered iPad Air, and MacBook Neo, all introduced this spring, contributed to the segment lift.

The June-quarter guidance calls for 14% to 17% revenue growth, gross margin between 47.5% and 48.5%, and operating expenses between $18.8 billion and $19.1 billion. Apple flagged a “difficult compare” for iPad against last year’s A16 launch and noted the figures assume “global tariff rates, policies, and their application remain in effect.” Services growth is expected to track March-quarter rates after adjusting for foreign exchange.

Ternus on the call

Ternus, currently SVP of hardware engineering, will become CEO on September 1. The earnings call was his first in the new role, even though the title doesn’t transfer for four more months. “Stepping into the role of CEO is an incredible honor,” he told investors. He praised Cook’s tenure as having a hallmark of “deep thoughtfulness, deliberateness, and discipline” and said he and Parekh intend to maintain the same financial discipline through the transition.

Ternus declined to outline specific products. He called the moment “especially exciting” and said “we have an incredible roadmap ahead,” adding that this is “the most exciting time in my 25-year career at Apple to be building products and services.” Investors who tuned in for a Vision Pro update or a foldable iPhone confirmation got vibe, not specifics. That tracks with how Cook has historically used the call.

RAMageddon is the warning

Cook spent meaningful time on memory-chip supply, a topic the call had not addressed in this much detail before. TechCrunch’s writeup framed the shortage as industry-wide and AI-driven, with Cook explaining that Apple spent more on memory chips in March than in prior quarters but offset the cost by drawing down stockpiled inventory.

The forward-looking comment is the one to copy into your investor notes. Cook said Apple expects “significantly higher memory costs” in June and beyond that may “drive an increasing impact” on the business. He added: “There’s just a little less flexibility in the supply chain at the moment for getting more parts.” Reports cited by TechCrunch peg iPhone RAM costs as having quadrupled, which puts Apple in the same DRAM squeeze Samsung’s record Q1 was already pointing to. Apple buys, Samsung sells, and the AI buildout is the customer driving the price.

Cook reiterated that he will stay on as executive chairman after September 1 and remain available for supply-chain handoff. Translation: the operations expertise that made Apple Apple is staying within phone-call distance of Ternus through the next two RAM-purchase cycles.

What this means for you

If you cover Apple as an investor, the watch item over the next two earnings calls is the gross margin trend. Apple guided 47.5 to 48.5% for June, which already absorbs some of the higher memory cost. The September quarter guidance, when the iPhone 18 cycle starts, is where you’ll see whether Apple is going to eat the increase, pass it through to consumers as a price hike, or run leaner SKUs to keep the entry-tier untouched.

If you’re a developer, the takeaway is smaller and more practical. The MacBook Neo and M4 iPad Air launches landed this quarter, and Cook described AI-driven Mac demand as a positive surprise that the company “didn’t fully anticipate.” That suggests Apple Silicon supply on the Mac side is being bid up by the same machine-learning workloads that power your day. If you’re due for an upgrade, the timing argument tilts forward. Don’t sit on it. The DRAM trajectory points one way, and Apple’s June guidance language (“constrained supply”) is a strong hint about what’s coming for end-user pricing in the back half of 2026.