Apple's new CEO John Ternus to face first earnings test as memory costs surge

John Ternus, Apple's new CEO, will address investors in his first earnings call on Monday, tasked with navigating the company through a period of rising memory chip costs. Ternus has recently overseen the launch of Apple's first foldable phone, smart home hub, and touch-screen laptops, all of which began shipping during the company's current fiscal first quarter.

The CEO faces scrutiny over three key issues: the company's outlook for the crucial holiday quarter, Ternus' remarks on AI and revamped Siri, and the soaring costs of memory chips that analysts anticipate to drag quarterly profit growth to its weakest level in six quarters. The announcements followed Google's parent company, Alphabet, which reported weaker-than-expected growth in advertising and search business revenue.

Apple has been striving to differentiate its AI offerings from rivals like Meta Platforms and OpenAI, with the latter currently embroiled in a trade-secret lawsuit against Apple. Analysts are keen on understanding how Apple will monetize its AI systems, particularly through third-party agents distributed via the App Store. Despite Apple's cautious approach to AI spending, the company's shares have risen by approximately 27% this year, outpacing rivals such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon.

Apple's services segment is expected to grow by almost 10%, reaching $31.56 billion, while iPhone sales are projected to increase by about 15% to $56.54 billion, slightly decelerating from the previous quarter's 22% growth. The results will take into account just nine days of sales for the new iPhone 18 Pro models, with the launch of the foldable iPhone Duo on October 23 adding to the holiday quarter's momentum.

However, a small number of iPhone Duo devices have reported display issues, leading Apple to offer replacements, and the device's supply remaining tight.