During the Q3 2025 earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the company has shipped its three billionth iPhone. That’s a big milestone for the company. The company shipped its first iPhone back in 2007 and hit 1 billion units in 2016, nine years later. They reached 2 billion around 2021, about five years after that, and achieved 3 billion sales in just four years.
Greg Joswiak, Apple SVP Marketing, also tweeted to confirm the news.
Apple also confirmed that Apple pulled in $94 billion in revenue this quarter, up 10% year over year. Nearly $44 billion came from iPhone sales alone. That’s 10% year-over-year growth.
iPhone saw a double-digit growth during the quarter ending in June 2025. That’s huge, but there’s a reason for that. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, one reason could be fear. Many buyers are rushing to upgrade before potential tariffs make iPhones more expensive. These are tariffs introduced under Trump-era trade rules. Apple said tariffs already cost them $800 million last quarter, and it expects losses of $1.1 billion in the next. In March, Apple even airlifted nearly $2 billion worth of iPhones from India to avoid further costs.
While iPhone sales are still going strong, Apple is preparing to invest heavily in AI. He even said that Apple might acquire a company to speed up its AI roadmap. That’s a big move for a company that’s usually slow and careful with acquisitions. But with the AI race heating up, Apple knows it cannot fall behind.
Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 17 lineup in September, and one model getting attention is the rumored iPhone 17 Air. It could be an ultra-thin iPhone with a minimalist design. It may feature just one rear camera, a basic A19 chip, and a 6.6-inch screen. This phone could be priced around $900, which is more than the base iPhone 16 but matches the iPhone 16 Plus.
Three billion iPhones is a huge milestone, not just for Apple, but for the entire tech world. It shows how dominant the iPhone has become since 2007. Right now, Apple doesn’t stand anywhere in the AI race, but the company is investing heavily in AI and could soon bounce back.
