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AAPL · Forward model · Mac · Bear case

What has to happen in Mac

Model as of

This page changes Mac inside the complete AAPL model. Every other vertical, corporate programme and valuation assumption stays in the selected portfolio case.

AAPL forward model
Horizon
Consolidated fair value $217.85 all other verticals held in this portfolio case
Final-quarter revenue $7.99B 6% of company revenue
Explicit segment contribution $50.67B EBITDA less segment capex, before corporate items

The June quarter was the peak. Company growth halves from 16.4% to the guided 9-11%, gross margin steps back from 50.06% to 47-48% as the tariff refunds shrink from about two points to about one, supply constraints were guided to increase significantly sequentially across iPhone, Mac and iPad, and memory costs rise again. Services, the margin engine, already decelerated from 16.3% to 12.1% in a single quarter. R&D has grown at roughly twice the revenue rate for two consecutive quarters with no disclosed AI revenue, so corporate overhead drifts up rather than staying at 17.4%. What this case does NOT assume is a collapse in the installed base or the loss of the Google licensing payment - it says the fiscal 2026 growth rate was a tariff-and-cycle artefact that does not repeat.

Mac

Basis quarter$10.35B
Final quarter$7.99B
Implied CAGR−5%
Final revenue mix6%

$10,352M in the basis quarter, up 28.7% year over year and a June-quarter record on the M5 and MacBook Neo cycle - and it printed that while management was calling out advanced-node supply constraints on the same line. There is no Mac unit or price disclosure, so the driver is growth on the reported net-sales line. Mac carries NO seasonal index: across the two full-year windows in the printed history its quarter-to-quarter variation is smaller than the disagreement between the windows, so the shape is launch timing rather than a calendar.

Last four quarters
2025 Q3 $8.73B Reported
2025 Q4 $8.39B Reported
2026 Q1 $8.40B Reported
2026 Q2 $10.35B Reported
Mac hardware net sales
Sequential growth −10.0%/qtr decaying toward +0.7% Our allocation of the guided remainder: a record launch quarter unwinding into guided supply constraints.
Mac

Latest: $7.99B (2031Q2E)

Period Value
2025Q1 $7.95B
2025Q2 $8.05B
2025Q3 $8.73B
2025Q4 $8.39B
2026Q1 $8.40B
2026Q2 $10.35B
2026Q3E $9.27B
2026Q4E $8.73B
2027Q1E $8.45B
2027Q2E $8.30B
2027Q3E $8.21B
2027Q4E $8.16B
2028Q1E $8.13B
2028Q2E $8.11B
2028Q3E $8.09B
2028Q4E $8.08B
2029Q1E $8.07B
2029Q2E $8.06B
2029Q3E $8.05B
2029Q4E $8.04B
2030Q1E $8.03B
2030Q2E $8.02B
2030Q3E $8.02B
2030Q4E $8.01B
2031Q1E $8.00B
2031Q2E $7.99B

Assumptions & reasoning

  • The six quarters of history are the disclosed Mac line from the Form 8-K 'Net sales by category' footnote; only the forward sequential step is ours.
  • Mac is deliberately aseasonal. Measured the same way as the seasonal lines, its seasonal amplitude is 0.115 while the two full-year windows disagree by up to 0.183 - the noise exceeds the signal, which is what a launch-driven line looks like. Asserting a shape here would encode the M5 launch as a calendar effect.
  • Apple guided total revenue, iPhone and Services and nothing else. The remaining $24,824M for Mac, iPad and Wearables is the guided midpoint less those two lines at their guided rates. Mac carries the largest share of the shortfall because it just printed a record on a launch and is the line for which advanced-node constraints were named. That allocation is ours, not Apple's.
  • Margin and capex intensity are the company-level Products figures applied uniformly. Apple discloses no per-category gross margin and allocates no capital expenditure by category, so any Mac-specific economics here would be invented.
  • The -10% step takes Mac to $9,317M in September, still +6.8% year over year against $8,726M, and the fast decay returns the line to a low-single-digit growth trend rather than compounding the decline.
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