Apple Reports Record Revenue as AI Demand Drives iPhone and Services Growth

Apple reported fiscal Q2 2026 revenue of $111.2 billion, up 17 percent year-over-year. Strong iPhone demand and a record Services business drove the results, as AI-capable devices attracted buyers across the company's product lineup.

The results came as Apple navigates a competitive AI hardware market. The company is reportedly exploring Intel and Samsung as suppliers for future processors due to AI data center buildouts and strong demand for AI-capable Macs. That would mark a shift from Apple's tightly controlled chip partnerships.

Samsung also reached a $1 trillion market valuation during the same period, fueled by a more than fourfold stock rise over the past year tied to the AI boom. The milestone signals Asia's growing influence in the global AI supply chain.

Tech Startups reported that AMD's latest forecast sparked a rally in U.S. chip stocks, indicating that AI-driven demand is broadening beyond Nvidia to other processor and server providers. Qualcomm also announced a major customer for its new AI data center processor, signaling its entry into the high-margin inference and training chip market.

Cerebras Systems filed for a Nasdaq IPO, planning to raise up to $3.5 billion at a valuation of up to $26.6 billion. The company builds wafer-scale engines as alternatives to Nvidia GPUs and reported a major deal with OpenAI for compute capacity.

The broader tech sector is seeing record investment in AI infrastructure, with private equity firms and major corporations committing billions to data centers, power generation, and advanced chips.