Apple's sales in Greater China rose 21% to $17.5 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter, helping lift total revenue 12% to a September-quarter record of $114.5 billion, the company said Monday. iPhone revenue climbed 17% to $57.6 billion.

For investors in Asia, the report is a read on two things at once: Chinese consumer demand for premium phones, and how much of the memory chip boom Apple's assembly partners and component makers will feel. Apple's balance sheet showed inventories of $14.5 billion at the end of September, up from $5.7 billion a year earlier, as memory prices climbed.

Revenue beat the $113.4 billion that analysts expected, and earnings of $2.10 a share topped the $1.99 consensus, according to a FactSet poll cited by the Associated Press. Shares closed down 1.8% at $338.32 in regular trading before the report and were little changed after hours, the AP said.

Apple's Asia Sales: China Strong, Japan Flat

The China figure was a September-quarter record but fell short of analysts' estimates, Fox Business reported. For the full fiscal year, Greater China sales rose 28% to $82.4 billion, according to Apple's filing, making it the fastest-growing of the company's five regions.

Elsewhere in Asia the picture was mixed. Sales in the Rest of Asia Pacific segment rose 15% to $9.7 billion. Japan was the only region to shrink, slipping 1.4% to $6.5 billion. Together the three Asian segments accounted for about 30% of quarterly revenue.

Apple is preparing a December launch of AI features for Chinese users, having picked Alibaba's Qwen model to power Siri in China, which could add a new selling point in its second-largest overseas market going into the holiday quarter.

By product, Mac revenue jumped 24% to $10.8 billion, while iPad sales fell 10% and the wearables, home and accessories category dropped 8%. Services, which includes the App Store and iCloud, rose 10% to a record $31.6 billion. Fox Business noted that the quarter included only eight days of iPhone 18 Pro sales.

Memory Costs and a Foldable Bottleneck

Chief Executive John Ternus, reporting his first results since taking over the top job, called the disruption in memory chip supply "absolutely unprecedented," according to Fox Business. Memory costs were higher than in the June quarter, the outlet reported, with part of the increase offset by inventory carried in from earlier periods and cheaper prices for some other components.

Apple has passed some of the cost on. It raised Mac and iPad prices at the end of June and iPhone prices in September, Fox Business said, and the AP reported that the iPhone 18 costs about $100 more than earlier generations. That pricing has kept margins intact so far: gross margin was 47.9%, though Apple said about 1 percentage point of that came from refunds of U.S. tariffs, which also added 5 cents to earnings per share.

The memory squeeze has been a windfall for Asian producers. South Korea's chip exports rose 259% in October, and Apple's rising inventory and $82.3 billion in accounts payable, up from $69.9 billion a year earlier, point to heavy component buying through its supply chain ahead of the holiday season.

The second constraint is the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable phone, which starts at $1,999 and went on sale in October, after the quarter closed. Ternus told Reuters that "Duo is constrained as of today" and that Apple could not predict when supply would match demand, MacRumors reported. Orders placed Monday carried delivery estimates in January. Ternus also said a very small share of units had been returned over inner-display problems and were being replaced.

A Record Holiday Quarter, at a Lower Margin

On the conference call, Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh forecast December-quarter revenue growth of 7% to 10% from a year earlier, which Apple said would be its best revenue quarter ever, according to 9to5Mac and MacRumors. Gross margin is expected to narrow to 45% to 46%, reflecting higher memory costs and the cost of ramping up Siri AI. Apple also expects Mac and iPad supply to be constrained in the quarter, mainly because of memory, MacRumors reported.

Spending on Research, Not Data Centers

Apple's research and development spending rose 32% from a year earlier to $11.7 billion in the quarter. Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne told the AP that partnerships with companies such as Alphabet could help Apple strengthen its AI capabilities without the financial risks its rivals face.

Apple generated $28 billion in operating cash flow in the quarter and returned the same amount to shareholders, Parekh said in the statement. Fiscal 2026 revenue reached $478.8 billion, up 15%.

The board declared a dividend of 27 cents a share, payable Nov. 16 to shareholders of record on Nov. 12. The next test for Asian suppliers is how many Duo and iPhone 18 units Apple's assemblers can ship before the December quarter closes.