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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.

4 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. 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.

  3. 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.