Forget the AI Headlines: Apple's First Foldable iPhone Could Be the Stock's Biggest Catalyst in Years
Written by Daniel Sparks for The Motley Fool -> Apple's iPhone revenue rose 22% in its most recent quarter, a March quarter record. Apple could launch its first foldable iPhone alongside the iPhone 18 lineup this fall. Apple stock continues to trade at a premium valuation. Mo
Apple's iPhone revenue rose 22% in its most recent quarter, a March quarter record.
Apple could launch its first foldable iPhone alongside the iPhone 18 lineup this fall.
Most of the recent conversation around Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has centered on artificial intelligence (AI) . At its annual developers conference this week, the tech giant walked through a long-awaited overhaul of its Siri voice assistant and its broader Apple Intelligence AI features -- and investors weren't especially impressed. After touching an all-time high of about $317 earlier this month, shares have eased back to around $291 as of this writing.
But for a company worth about $4.3 trillion, where the iPhone still brings in about half of all revenue, the more important near-term question may have little to do with AI. It could come down to hardware -- and specifically, whether Apple can keep its current upgrade wave going while adding something genuinely new to the lineup.
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In its fiscal second quarter of 2026 (the period ended March 28, 2026), Apple's iPhone revenue rose 22% year over year to about $57 billion -- a record for the March period. And that capped a streak that began the moment the iPhone 17 arrived.
The iPhone 17 lineup launched last September. Apple set a September-quarter iPhone record to close out fiscal 2025, then turned in its best iPhone quarter ever over the holidays, before the 22% jump in the most recent quarter. In fact, demand actually ran ahead of what the company could build, with Apple pointing to component shortages as a limit on how much iPhone revenue it could book.
What stands out, though, is who is buying. Apple said it set a March-quarter record for iPhone upgraders, and its installed base of active devices -- already more than 2.5 billion -- climbed to yet another all-time high.
