People seem to be getting bored of Apple’s iPhone – with the tech giant predicting the first-ever decline in its sales later this year.
Advertisement
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. They made up almost 70 percent of its revenue in the past holiday quarter.
Apple has announced its earnings report for the first quarter of 2016, and it’s an outcome that goes in two directions.
Apple sold 74.8 iPhones during the quarter, up less than 1 percent over last year’s sales of 74.5 million and just shy of the 75 million to 76 million Wall Street expected.
“Our team delivered Apple’s biggest quarter ever, thanks to the world’s most innovative products and all-time record sales of iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV”, said Tim Cook, Apple CEO. If that were to be the case, it would mark Apple’s first fall in revenues since the launch of the first iPhone.
During the Q2 2015, it had predicted $58 billion in revenue for the next year but now it has pegged that number to be anywhere between $50 and $53 billion in revenue. Meanwhile, iPad sales dipped 25 per cent year-on-year from 21.4m to 16.1m units sold. “Major markets, including Brazil, Russia, Japan, Canada, south east Asia, Australia, Turkey and the eurozone have been impacted by slowing economic growth, falling commodity prices and weakening currencies”. Some analysts remain optimistic in Apple’s ability to drive growth amid the troublesome economy. This includes iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and iPod Touch devices that have been engaged with Apple services within the previous 90 days.
“Apple has been in this position before, although pressure is building for Cook to show success outside its core iPhone DNA to give investors confidence”, says FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives. This category pulled in $4.4 billion, an increase of 62% year-over-year (specific Watch numbers were not released).
Advertisement
According to the report, Apple had earned $31 billion in revenue from its installed service base in the fiscal year 2015 which was a 23 percent annual increase.
