Apple Earnings Estimates: Erste Lifts FY2027 EPS Forecast to $9.57

A one-cent revision as the countdown begins

Erste Group Bank has raised its earnings forecast for Apple again, though the change is small. In a note dated Thursday, October 8, Erste analyst H. Engel lifted the bank's fiscal 2027 earnings-per-share estimate for the iPhone maker to $9.57, up from $9.56.12 Several financial-news outlets ran the item under headlines about Erste "boosting" its estimates, and all of them put the same $8.75 consensus figure for Apple's current fiscal year beside it.13

Taken alone, a one-cent change means almost nothing. What makes it worth a look is the pattern. On September 8, Erste moved its fiscal 2027 figure from $9.54 to $9.55.7 On September 18, it went from $9.55 to $9.56.56 The October 8 note added another cent.1 That is three increases of a penny each in about a month. Erste is not changing its view of Apple. It is confirming the view it already had while the stock trades near record highs and the next earnings report gets close.

Comparing the numbers fairly

Much of the coverage sets Erste's $9.57 against the $8.75 consensus, which makes the bank look well ahead of the rest of Wall Street.13 But the reports describe that $8.75 as the consensus for Apple's current fiscal year, while Erste's figure is for fiscal 2027.2 The two numbers cover different years. Part of the gap is just a year of expected earnings growth, so it is not fair to call Erste much more bullish than its peers.

The same Erste team made the same kind of move on other megacaps that week. On October 8 it nudged Alphabet's fiscal 2027 estimate from $14.99 to $15.01.9 It also edged up its fiscal 2028 forecast for Alibaba by a cent.8 Read together, these changes look like a routine update of the bank's models across its coverage list, not a specific call on Apple.

The quarter behind the estimates

The last earnings report gives estimate-raisers some backing. For the fiscal third quarter ended June 27, 2026, Apple reported revenue of $109.42 billion, up 16.4% from a year earlier, and diluted earnings of $2.02 per share, compared with $1.57 a year before.2325 Net income rose to about $29.8 billion from $23.4 billion.30

Apple beat expectations on both lines, though reports differ on the size of the revenue beat. MarketBeat-style coverage puts the revenue consensus at $109.04 billion, which makes the top-line beat less than half a billion dollars.2 Tickeron cites a consensus near $108.7 billion, which makes it a bit bigger.22 The earnings beat is clearer: $2.02 against a $1.89 estimate, or 13 cents.222

Products drove most of the growth. iPhone revenue rose about 22% to $54.3 billion on demand for the iPhone 17 family. Mac revenue rose about 29% to $10.4 billion, its best June quarter ever.2329 Services hit a record of about $30.7 billion, but its 12% growth was slower than the products business.25 Tickeron reported that Services missed analyst estimates.22 iPad was the one weak category, down about 6% against a tough comparison with the prior year.30

The tariff-refund caveat

The more careful accounts of the quarter all point to one detail: some of the profit beat came from a one-time item. Apple said about 11 cents of the $2.02 came from tariff refunds.2326 The refunds also added about two percentage points to the reported 50.1% gross margin. Without them, the margin would have been roughly 48%, the midpoint of Apple's own guidance.2123

This matters for the headline beat. Take out the 11 cents and earnings would have been about $1.91, only slightly above the $1.89 consensus. That still beats expectations, and Apple says it is a June-quarter record even without the refund.23 But the margin of the beat is much thinner than the headline suggests. Tiny upward revisions like Erste's look consistent with that: the underlying business is solid, but the quarter does not justify a big jump in estimates.

Guidance cooled the reaction

Investors seemed to focus on the outlook rather than the beat. Tickeron reported that the shares fell more than 6% in after-hours trading after the release.22 For the September quarter, Apple guided to revenue growth of 9% to 11%. That is a clear slowdown from mid-teens growth, and below the roughly 12% the consensus implied.2122 It also guided to a gross margin of 47% to 48%, which includes about one point from tariff refunds. Without that help, the midpoint is about 46.5%. Apple blamed the sequential decline mainly on memory costs.23

Apple also cited supply constraints and about 2.5 points of sequential currency headwind, and said iPhone growth should be in the mid-teens.23 The earlier trend makes the slowdown clearer. In the March quarter, Apple reported 17% growth to $111.2 billion and a 49.3% gross margin.24 At that point it guided June-quarter growth to 14% to 17%.28 So the business has gone from strong double-digit growth to high single digits or low double digits, while input costs keep rising.

The quarter also brought a leadership change. It was Tim Cook's last earnings call as CEO, and John Ternus was named to take over on September 1.26

Price targets are rising faster than earnings estimates

Price targets have been rising faster than earnings estimates. On October 12, JPMorgan's Samik Chatterjee raised his target to $360 from $340 and kept an Overweight rating.1319 Bank of America repeated its Buy rating and $370 target.13 Evercore ISI had already moved to $380 in mid-September, citing a consumer survey that pointed to a strong upgrade cycle and higher selling prices.5 Rothschild & Co Redburn has a $400 target.2

The consensus is less enthusiastic. MarketBeat's tally shows one Strong Buy, 25 Buys, 14 Holds and two Sells, with an average target of $340.39.1 The stock opened at $340.97 on October 13 and later reached a 52-week high of $348.15 that day.317 That puts the shares at or above the average analyst target, at roughly 39 to 40 times earnings.17 GuruFocus's own fair-value model rates the stock about 18% overvalued.12 Not every recent target change was upward: Morgan Stanley cut its target from $360 to $355 on October 1.14

The JPMorgan note is worth reading closely because it is less bullish than the higher target suggests. Chatterjee cut his December-quarter volume estimates and now expects earnings of $2.81 per share, about 4% below the $2.92 consensus.13 He forecasts iPhone shipments of 69 million, down 18% from a year earlier, and expects average selling prices to rise about 20% and make up most of the drop.13 In his view, this cycle is driven by higher prices, not more units, and recent supplier cuts reflect Apple's new staggered launch schedule rather than weak demand.1319 9to5Mac reported that JPMorgan expects iPhone revenue to fall about 2% in the December quarter even as total revenue rises about 2%, with 8.5 million iPhone Duo foldables helping to fill the gap.19

Risks ahead of the next report

The main risk factors show up across much of the coverage. Reports of cuts to iPhone 18 production orders briefly knocked the shares down about 2.5%.19 Rising memory costs are squeezing margins even after a $100 price increase on Pro models.7 Commentators also raise the risk of slow progress on AI and Siri.17 A newer worry is SpaceX's Starlink. BofA estimates that if 10% of the big three carriers' postpaid subscribers moved to SpaceX, Apple could lose about 5 million units, or roughly $6 billion in revenue. BofA expects any real effect in fiscal 2028 or later.13 Cook's sale of 191,753 shares on October 2 at about $333 adds to the insider-selling figures that some outlets highlight.3 MarketBeat says recent insider sales were mainly to cover taxes on equity awards.20

Even the date of the next report differs between outlets. MarketBeat and Tickeron list October 29.122 A German financial outlet gives November 2.18 Investors should check Apple's own announcement.

What it adds up to

The clearest reading is this. Erste's repeated one-cent increases are a minor signal, and the headlines that turn them into "boosts" make them sound bigger than they are. The real story is the gap between price targets and earnings estimates. Analysts keep raising targets because they are confident Apple can raise prices, while estimates barely move and the nearest quarter's numbers are being cut. At about 40 times earnings and right around the consensus target, the stock leaves little room for error. The coming report will need to show that higher prices can offset lower volumes and rising memory costs. A one-cent change in a 2027 estimate says little about whether that will happen.