Apple’s iPhone sales have never declined before.
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A year ago in Q1 Apple managed a record-breaking quarterly profit of $18 on $74.60 revenue, and beating that figure keeps the company fixed to the tech throne.
As in China, Apple products are a coveted status symbol in India, a market that analysts say is likely to overtake the United States next year to become the world’s second largest smartphone market.
Apple executives painted the downturn as a momentary hiccup.
“As we move into the March quarter it’s becoming more apparent that there are some signs of economic softness, We are starting to see something that we have not seen before”, ” Maestri added. “The growth of our Services business accelerated during the quarter to produce record results, and our installed base recently crossed a major milestone of one billion active devices”.
Apple sold a record 13 million of the new devices across 12 countries over the opening weekend, with analysts estimating sales of between 2-3 million units in China.
Apple’s revenue relies on the sales of iPhones substantially: Fully 66 percent of sales were from iPhones in fiscal year 2015, according to the company’s 10-K filing. Tuesday’s report confirmed those fears.
Growth was exceptionally hard to come by in the last quarter of 2015, particularly as iPhones just barely beat out sales from a year earlier.
In recent months, the Silicon Valley giant has been facing doubt from investors anxious that Apple’s hypergrowth will slow down. Net income was $18.4 billion for the period. Cook called it “the mother of all balance sheets”.
Apple’s per share earnings landed 5 cents above the $3.23 analysts had forecast.
Analysts had expected revenue of US$76.54 billion. The holiday shopping season is the most important time for Apple shortly after the launch of new iPhone models traditionally. This would be its first decrease in sales in more than a decade as the company reported the slowest-ever growth in iPhone shipments which implies that company’s unprecedented run of growth is history.
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The popularity of the redesigned iPhone 6, released in September 2014, led Apple to report the highest profit ever of any public company in last year’s first quarter. Gross margin was 40.1 percent compared to 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter and global sales accounted for 66 percent of the total quarter’s revenue.
