Apple forecasts drop in sales despite iPhone record

Apple chief executive Tim Cook at the firm's Edinburgh store. Picture: Neil Hanna

The tech giant said revenue could fall at least 8.6 per cent during the January-March quarter, compared with a year earlier. Analysts said the latest iPhone models are not providing the boost Apple needs to match the massive sales growth it enjoyed last year.

Apple executives painted the downturn as a momentary hiccup, but also acknowledged the company was working to broaden its business beyond the iPhone itself, which in recent years has provided the bulk of Apple’s revenue.

“We have become more and more of a platform company,” chief financial officer Luca Maestri said.

He said Apple had a large base of customers – with one billion Apple devices now in active use – who could be relied on to buy new Apple gadgets, mobile apps and services like Apple Music.

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Reporting on its financial performance in the December quarter, Apple said it managed to inch past its previous record, established when it sold 74.5 million iPhones in the last quarter of 2014. But the latest forecast implies Apple does not expect to match the 61 million iPhones sold in last year’s January-March quarter.

Apple’s stock has been in a slump for months, as investors worry the company will not be able to duplicate last year’s growth in sales, which were in the double-digit percentages. The report confirmed those fears.

Executives blamed a strong dollar for reducing revenue from overseas sales in the December quarter. Apple is also confronting an economic downturn in China, one of its biggest markets.

“We’re seeing extreme conditions, unlike anything we’ve experienced before, just about everywhere we look,” chief executive Tim Cook told analysts.

But researchers also said global demand for new smartphones has been slowing over the last year. Apple relies on the iPhone for two-thirds of its revenue and a similar share of profit.

The giant tech company is in no financial danger. It earned $18.4 billion (£12.8bn) in profit for the October-December quarter, ending the period with $216bn in cash. Cook called it “the mother of all balance sheets”.

Profit rose 1.8 per cent from a year earlier, while revenue increased 1.7 per cent to $75.9bn. Earnings amounted to $3.28 a share, which beat the $3.23 average forecast among analysts surveyed by FactSet. But revenues fell short of analysts’ estimates, which averaged $76.7bn.

No one expects Apple to match those results in the current January-March quarter, as sales traditionally drop after the festive shopping season and the introduction of new models.

But Apple’s forecast, which calls for revenue between $50bn and $53bn in the current period, was lower than analysts expected and a significant drop from the $58bn in sales Apple reported a year earlier.

That would be Apple’s first year-over-year sales decline since the January-March quarter of 2003 – long before the company began selling iPhones and iPads. Back then, Apple was a fraction of its current size, reporting quarterly revenue of just $1.45bn.

While the iPhone has been a phenomenal success, analysts said it is difficult to match the sales surge that Apple enjoyed last year after it introduced the first models with significantly larger screens to compete with big-screen phones from rivals like Samsung, which were hugely popular in Asia.

Analysts said last September’s release of two more big-screen phones, the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, made less of a splash because they were viewed as relatively similar to the previous models, despite some new features. Apple is expected to release the next iPhone models, with new features, later this year. That could fuel another surge in sales. Along with first-time buyers and people who switch from competitors’ phones, analysts say Apple can count on a loyal base of iPhone owners who will buy a new model every two years or so.

Maestri also cited $5.5bn in revenue the company collected from sales of apps and services in the last quarter – a 15 per cent increase from a year earlier.

Sceptics, however, note that Apple has not come up with a blockbuster product to replace the iPhone. The company’s latest report showed sales of Mac computers and iPads both declined in the previous quarter.

At least for now, Apple “continues to be dominated by the iPhone and that will certainly, in the near run, continue to dictate the company’s prospects”, said analyst Bill Kreher of the Edward Jones investment firm.

Over the longer term, he said, revenue from apps and services, along with new products like the Apple Watch, “will be critical as the company attempts to reignite growth”.