Tim Cook sells $63.8 million of Apple stock, as Apple sets 2 November for John Ternus's first resultsTim Cook sells $63.8 million of Apple stock, as Apple sets 2 November for John Ternus's first results

Tim Cook, Apple's executive chair, sold 191,753 Apple shares worth about $63.8 million on 2 October, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Form 4 shows the sale went through in four lots at weighted average prices between $331.44 and $333.94, and the filing's box for a Rule 10b5-1 plan is ticked, meaning the sale was scheduled in advance rather than decided on the day. iClarified, reading the footnotes, dates Cook's plan to 28 May. The day before, on 1 October, 374,541 restricted stock units vested; Apple withheld 199,038 of the resulting shares, worth about $65.7 million at $330.32, to cover tax. Cook also gave away 26,325 shares to a recipient the filing does not name, and Cook's trust holds 3,237,843 shares afterwards.

The vesting units were a 2023 award that paid out according to Apple's total shareholder return against other S&P 500 companies over fiscal 2024 to 2026, which iClarified puts at 90.67 per cent. Cook handed the chief executive role to John Ternus on 1 September.

When does Apple report its next results?

Apple's investor relations calendar lists its fiscal 2026 fourth quarter results for Monday 2 November, with the call at 14:00 Pacific time. It will be Ternus's first results call as chief executive, with chief financial officer Kevan Parekh. On its July call Apple guided to revenue growth of 9 to 11 per cent for the quarter, AppleInsider reports, below the 12.1 per cent analysts had expected, with iPhone revenue up by a mid-teens percentage. The quarter closed only weeks after the iPhone 18 Pro went on sale, so most of that launch falls into the December quarter.

Counterpoint: Apple leads Europe's carrier channel

Separately, Counterpoint Research said in a report published this week that Apple took the lead in European smartphone sales through mobile operators in the second quarter of 2026. By 9to5Mac's reading of the report, Apple's share of that channel rose from 33 to 37 per cent year on year while Samsung's fell from 39 to 34. Carrier sales fell 4 per cent against an 11 per cent fall in the open market, which Counterpoint attributes to the memory price crisis hitting cheap phones hardest; carrier sales lean towards premium phones bought on contract.

What it means

The share sale is the least surprising part of this. A 10b5-1 plan exists so that an executive's sale says nothing about what they know, and this one followed a scheduled vesting by a day. The useful number is the 90.67 per cent shareholder return that set the size of the award; that is the record Cook's last three years as chief executive are being paid against, and the figure Ternus inherits as a benchmark.

The 2 November call matters more. It is Ternus's first chance to set the tone with investors after a month in which Bloomberg reported Ternus cutting program managers to ship more products, faster. Analysts will want guidance for the holiday quarter, which will carry the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo and the 13 October home products, and some sense of how Apple is handling memory costs.

Counterpoint's Europe figures and its earlier finding that iPhone 18 Pro sales put Apple top in China in launch week point the same way: when memory prices squeeze cheap phones, Apple's premium-heavy mix holds up better than the market. APPDOOK's reading is that this is a tailwind for Apple's share rather than its volume, because a shrinking market that Apple leads is still a shrinking market, and that is the distinction worth listening for on 2 November.