Jason Snell on Apple’s Quarterly Results

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

In the post-results call with financial analysts, Wamsi Mohan of Bank of America asked Cook for a little more detail about Apple’s search revenue, given its lucrative deal with Google, and whether that revenue growth might decelerate if Google’s search traffic were to be impacted by the growth of AI. Cook’s response was, if I do say so myself, an all-timer for these calls:

Cook: This is Tim. The advertising category, which is a combination of third-party and first-party, did set a record during the quarter.

Mohan: Okay, and sorry, just to be clear, both Apple’s own internal advertising and within the licensing individually set records?

Cook: I actually I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that the combination of the two set a record. We don’t divulge — I’m dodging the question intentionally because we don’t split it at that level.

Look, these calls are almost entirely Apple execs dodging the questions of fiscal analysts. At least Tim Cook admitted it this time. You want to know how much Google is paying us and if that’s growing or shrinking? Well, I’m not gonna tell you!

If Apple’s quarterly analyst calls were a podcast, “Dodging the Question Intentionally” would be a great episode title for this one.

★ Thursday, 30 October 2025