Episode summary
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily: Apple Growth Decelerates (Podcast)
Bloomberg Businessweek Daily
· · Hosts: Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec · Guests: Anurag Rana, Mark Gurman, Seth Fiegerman, Ryan Gould
Summary
Apple’s September-quarter results showed solid absolute growth but a clear deceleration from the June quarter, with revenue of $114.48 billion and EPS of $2.10 both beating estimates while Greater China missed at $17.54 billion. The host and analysts said the bigger issue is what comes next: services growth is slowing, memory costs are pressuring margins, and the market is focused on guidance for the December quarter, especially around the new iPhone Duo and holiday demand.
The discussion framed Apple as a stock that has already rerated sharply, adding about $1 trillion in market value since late June, leaving investors to ask whether much of the upside is already priced in. The analysts argued that Apple’s lack of heavy capex has helped preserve free cash flow while hyperscalers have been spending aggressively, but they also said Apple still lacks a convincing AI strategy beyond a Siri upgrade that improves core use cases.
The show then turned to Anthropic, which reported roughly $17 billion in third-quarter revenue, a twelve-fold increase from a year earlier, while also signaling huge spending commitments tied to data centers and compute. Finally, Marvell’s agreed acquisition of Lumentum for $115 billion was presented as a big bet on optical networking, though the stock reaction suggested investors were skeptical about the deal structure and timing.
Key takeaways
- Apple beat on revenue and EPS, but Greater China missed again and services growth is slowing, which put guidance at the center of the debate.
- The analyst said Apple’s margins face pressure from higher memory costs, and that the company’s $1 trillion market-cap run since late June leaves valuation looking stretched.
- The analyst argued Apple’s AI position is still thin beyond Siri improvements, even though its free cash flow remains a relative strength versus big AI spenders.
- Anthropic’s revenue jumped to about $17 billion in the third quarter, but its spending commitments show how capital-intensive AI infrastructure is becoming.
- Marvell’s $115 billion Lumentum deal is a bet on optical components replacing copper in data centers, but the all-stock structure pushed risk onto Lumentum shareholders.
Notable quotes
“Apple revenue $114.48 billion, a beat on the overall top line and also a beat on the bottom line”
“Greater China revenue. Um, a bit of a disappointment again, 17.54 billion versus the street estimate of 18.75 billion”
“We are already seeing services being slowed down a little”
“the company reporting third quarter revenue of close to $17 billion. It's as of September 30th”
How the episode opens
This is Bloomberg Businessweek daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek daily podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stead of at. Apple just a little bit lower.
Uh, there. Um, and we're going to be, of course, breaking their earnings down in just about seven minutes. So we'll have full analysis.
And that includes with our next guest who's really a member of the family. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, you know, we talk about the instant insight analysis that we get from our Bloomberg team. And he is certainly crucial for it on a Rob Reiner is Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech analyst. He joins us from Chicago.
Okay. We're going to talk to you about Apple in a few minutes. I mean, we still got six minutes until these earnings crossed.
But Carol, there's some other stuff on our radar that we want to talk about, including the correction that the Nasdaq 100 is officially in and third one this year. Yeah, 33 is what do they say? The third time's a charm.
Yeah. Anurag is it? Third time's a charm.
I mean I like to see markets go up, pull back you know get some of the excess out. But you are the expert here. And when you see an index um three times hitting uh official 10% correction, I don't know.
Is that a healthy market? Is that a market that's a little bit troubled? So one, one of the things we would talk about is that there is certainly a lot more, um, you could say ups and downs in this time than the last few years.
You know, we all know a few things for sure, which is there is no shortage of, uh, demand for eye compute, which means everybody wants it.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- apple earnings growth deceleration
- china revenue slowdown
- anthropic revenue growth and spending
- ai capex outlook
- marvell acquisition of lumentum
Companies and tickers mentioned
- AAPL
- MRVL
- LITE
- Apple
- Anthropic
- Marvell
- Lumentum
Watch the episode
Watch “Bloomberg Businessweek Daily: Apple Growth Decelerates (Podcast)” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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