Visa / Mastercard / Apple - More Earnings

APPLE

We start with Apple, which not only beat expectations but also posted a historic record in iPhone sales. And that is not all. The company finally seems to be making a dynamic entry into the world of artificial intelligence, with some very interesting moves.

In Q1 2026, Apple reported revenue of $143.8 billion and earnings per share of $2.84, comfortably beating analysts’ expectations of $2.68 EPS and $138.4 billion in revenue. This was a clear outperformance.

The highlight, of course, was iPhone sales, which reached $85.3 billion, an all time record for the company. To put that into perspective, in the same quarter last year, sales were $69.1 billion. That is growth of more than 23% year over year.

And it does not stop there. Sales in China surged by almost 38%, reaching $25.5 billion, clearly signaling a recovery in a market that had shown signs of fatigue in recent months.

On the innovation front, Apple is not standing still either. The company announced the acquisition of the startup Q.AI for $2 billion. Q.AI specializes in facial micro movement analysis. It is easy to imagine this technology being integrated into Siri or future wearable devices, allowing Apple to create more “human like” interactions with its AI services.

Speaking of AI, Apple also recently announced a partnership with Google to use Gemini models and Google’s cloud infrastructure to strengthen its AI ecosystem. The new Siri is expected to launch later in 2026, and expectations are high.

Following the news, Apple’s stock rose by more than 1%. Some might have expected a stronger reaction, but with fundamentals like these, the outlook remains very positive.

MASTERCARD

Next up is Mastercard, which reported earnings a few hours before Visa and managed to impress both analysts and the market.

Earnings per share came in at $4.76 versus expectations of $4.24. Revenue reached $8.81 billion compared to the expected $8.78 billion. The difference may look small, but at this scale, the performance is meaningful.

Total gross dollar volume reached $2.82 trillion, also beating expectations. In addition, revenue from value added services and solutions jumped by an impressive 26%, showing that Mastercard is successfully diversifying its revenue beyond core payment processing.

The CEO stated that the macroeconomic environment remains supportive and that consumer spending, both personal and business related, continues to hold up at healthy levels.

As expected, the stock reacted positively, rising 4.3% in the previous trading session.

VISA

We now move on to Visa, which is also one of my favorite companies, and which reported excellent financial results as well. Revenue came in at $10.9 billion, above estimates, while earnings per share reached $3.17, also above expectations.

Total payment volume approached $3.87 trillion, up both quarter over quarter and year over year. Processed transactions increased by 9% to 69.4 billion, though this was slightly below analysts’ expectations of 69.7 billion.

That alone was enough to push the stock down 1.6% in after hours trading. A classic case of market overreaction, if you ask me.