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Apple's Annual Sales Fall For First Time Since 2001 (cnn.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the blast-from-the-past dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNNMoney: Apple just posted its first annual sales decline since 2001, the year it launched the iPod and kicked off a tremendous run of groundbreaking products. The tech company revealed Tuesday that annual sales fell to $216 billion in the 2016 fiscal year ending September 30, from a record $234 billion in 2015. The sales decline is closely connected to the falling sales for the iPhone, which remains Apple's largest source of revenue. Apple sold 45.5 million iPhones in the September quarter, down from 48 million iPhones in the same quarter a year earlier. That marks the third consecutive quarter when iPhone sales and overall revenue have declined from a year prior. Many analysts have raised concerns that the global smartphone market is saturated. Customers are taking longer to replace their phones. And Apple's latest iPhone is a dead ringer for the previous two models, eliminating some of the desire to upgrade. The good news is that this sales decline may prove to be a blip and not the new norm. Apple is projecting that it will post sales of $76 billion to $78 billion in the upcoming quarter, up from $74.8 billion a year earlier.

8 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing of significance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "a tremendous run of groundbreaking products"

    - removed headphone jack to previous generation phone
    - upgraded battery and performance slightly on watch
    - released a more performant iPad

    Nothing of significance -- and that's coming from an iSheep with several Apple products.

    1. Re: Nothing of significance by tginouye · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think by "a tremendous run of groundbreaking products" they mean starting in 2001 to now. It's up to anyone else to determine how groundbreaking they think the products from the last 15 years are, but at least they've done more in that stretch than just 2016.

    2. Re: Nothing of significance by harperska · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Performant" != "Fast". A performant thing is something which performs well, by whatever metrics are applicable to that thing. A performant algorithm is one that has both low time and space complexity. A performant web browser is one that renders the page quickly while also implementing the most web standards. A performant mobile device is one that is fast while drawing a minimal amount of power so that its battery lasts and it doesn't overheat. So "performant" is a very performant word, as it is a single word that means exactly what it needs to mean.

  2. I've said it before, without Jobs they're toast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've said it before and I will say it again: Without Jobs Apple is toast. Just like the last time Jobs left. They will continue for some years due to momentum but there is no stopping their fall. Without Jobs they are rudderless.

    1. Re:I've said it before, without Jobs they're toast by perpenso · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've said it before and I will say it again: Without Jobs Apple is toast. Just like the last time Jobs left.

      The original Mac under Jobs' tenure was an utter failure. Lots of press, disappointing sales. Many years after the Mac's introduction the Apple II was still paying the bills at Apple, carrying the Mac project. Jobs' Apple III (note 3 not 2) was a failure. Job's NeXTcube was a failure.

      The Mac only became successful after Jobs was gone, when design features he opposed were introduced. An open box, slots, etc.

      The iMac G3 of 1998 was Jobs' first successful computer. Prior to that he misread the market, the customers wants/needs over and over again.

      That said what really made Macs popular was the shift to Mac OS X, which Jobs deserves some credit for since it was a fork of NextOS, combined with the shift to Intel CPUs. Basically once people no longer had to make a choice between Mac OS or Windows, but could dual boot or effective emulate (the cpu architecture no longer had to be emulated so performance was many times faster) so they could have both operating systems on the same machine. This is when Apple's Mac sales rapidly doubled.

      In short while his record with digital music players and mobile devices is pretty damn good, Jobs' record with computers is pretty spotty, more likely a failure than a success. The Apple II was successful in part because Wozniak ignored Jobs on important design decisions and the Apple II had to carry Jobs for many years when he was able to bully people to get his way and those projects failed.

  3. The 6th gen was a spike above the normal trend by perpenso · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This doesn't seem like a surprise. You can't expect people to keep replacing $700+ devices every one or two years.

    I think it has more to do with the iPhone 6 generation being a very popular upgrade, mostly due to the larger screen sizes. That was a significant differentiator between the iPhone 4 and 5 generations. The iPhone 7 generation is too similar for many people to want to accelerate their device upgrade plans.

    In short its not that sales of the current generation are bad its just that the previous generation was phenomenal, a spike above the trend.

  4. Phones have reached good enough. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Phones are like computers.

    From the 80s to mid-late 2000s, businesses and later people (when it reached commodity prices) often brought new computers every 3 years, despite the massive cost, because the speed bump was so subsequent that it affected productivity. Other than a McD's cashier or Bank Teller at work, almost no one used a10 year old PC if they didn't have to, even if was $5,000 when new and worked as well as the day it came out of the fatory.

    Outside of gamers/artists and other niches, a good (at the time) 2010 computer would fit the masses just fine and the experience would be mostly the same. The same couldn't be said for a 1993 computer in 2000 or a 1999 computer in 2006. Notebooks are a different story due to form factor but getting there. In fact, the biggest upgrade most people will anticipate in a desktop won't be CPU but screen resolution -- soon 4k, but the vast majority of PCs are still using 1080p which probably was the same story in 2010.

    Phones have reached the good enough with iPhone 6. In both screen resolution and speed/ram. I have a iPad 2 from 2011, total PITA for daily use and not suitable for anything but netflix. Browsing is molasses. But I could see using my iPhone 6 for 3 more years without major hassle. Or a modern Samsung for 7, due to super screen res.

  5. Yup. Apple products used to be focused around by aussersterne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    enabling the user to do things they otherwise wouldn't know how to do or be able to do. Since Jobs left, they've steadily slid into the old game from the '90s and '00s that the tech majors (HP, Compaq, and so on) used to play—"innovation" becomes another word for "throw gadgety gimmicks at the wall and see what sticks," but without well-thought-out reasons why users might want the device, or an understanding of the ways in which UX friction impacts the device's usability.

    Compared to the rest of the marketplace and competing products at the time, the original iPhone, the original iPod, the original Intel Power Macs, the original LaserWriter, the original Macbook Pro models, the original iPad, etc. were all towering improvements that enabled users far more than competing products did.

    Now, the trend is the opposite.

    On the consumer end, iOS phones and tablets feel arbitrarily constrained next to Android
    Current Mac OS machines are generally limited in serious software and upgradeability again relative to Windows machines
    On the pro end, Apple's application ecosystem is weak once again compared to pro-level Windows applications ...and so on.

    It used to be that you paid a premium for Apple products but got much more or at the very least something highly differentiated for your money (esp. in the cases of early iPods vs. other MP3 players, iPhone 1 vs. other smartphones, iPad vs. other contemporary tablets, etc.).

    Now you pay a premium either for less or for something that is largely undifferentiated (and often negatively so in the minor differences that do exist).

    It hasn't always been the case that you're simply paying double for brushed metal and a glowing Apple logo, but it certainly feels that way now. People still want to pay for quality (hey, the aluminum case and better QA are nice), but now they have to consider the tradeoff—I can pay a lot more and get a nice metal Apple device, or I can pay a lot less and get a phone that's more configurable and flexible.

    That's my own feeling, anyway. I'd love to have the nice finish of an iOS device, but even if there was price parity I couldn't give up the flexibility of Android. I don't want to be tied down to Apple's visuals, Apple's icon positioning, Apple's version of KHTML, Apple's take on the (non-)filesystem and so on. I love Mac OS as well, or at least I have done since OS X, but the new Macbook Pros are limiting and I'm seriously considering getting a Windows laptop for my next purchase, just so that I can access hard drive, memory, and so on.

    Apple has begun to fetishize itself, rather than fetishize overall UX.

    --
    STOP . AMERICA . NOW