Smartphone giant Apple is facing its slowest growth in iPhone sales since the product’s launch and its first potential sales fall in the March quarter.
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Thanks in large part to selling 74.8 million iPhones, Apple recently recorded its best quarter ever.
Apple does have plenty of other products to try to increase its business in, and has released products like the Apple Watch in an effort to expand its business over the past year. Facebook had $4.5 billion in revenue its most recent quarter.
“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. Apple is predicting revenues of $50-53bn, below its Q2 2015 revenues of $58bn – the first year-on-year drop in revenues recorded by the company for 13 years.
Apple is bracing for its first sales slump in more than a decade. Even if that does not apply in this case, Apple still sold more phones in the last three months than at any period in its history.
Apple said earnings for another quarter will be between $50bn (GBP 34bn; Euro 46bn) and $53bn, below the $58bn it reported for the exact same period previous year. Apple also declared an upcoming dividend payment of $0.52 per share, payable on February 11 to shareholders of record as of February 8. (AAPL) on Tuesday reported fiscal first-quarter earnings of $18.36 billion. So, despite the new iPad Pro, iPads sales slumped 25 per cent year-over-year. Apple relies on the iPhone for two-thirds of its revenue and a similar share of profit. Apple’s stock has fallen further than the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which is down 4% in the same period, and the S&P 500, which has fallen 7%.
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And right now, the iPhone is pretty much the one big pillar responsible for virtually all of Apple’s growth, and if that one starts to stall, Wall Street folk will get nervous. Mac unit sales, meanwhile, were down 4% YoY. Still, one can’t help but think that if Apple had such a record-breaking December-which would make sense, since Apple likely sold a whole bunch of Watches over the holidays-it would want the world to know.
