Apple posts record China revenue amid global slowdown

Revenue in the first three months of the year would be $50bn-$53bn, Apple said on Tuesday, the first quarterly drop since 2003 and below analysts’ estimates of $55.5bn.

Mr Doku said Chinese technology firms Huawei and Oppo were “nipping at the heels” of Apple and other popular smartphone makers in the global market. In the same period in 2014, Apple sold 74.5 million units were sold, meaning sales were basically flat.

Investors, obviously, don’t like that, but Apple says that, as a company, it remains strong as ever. Indeed, Apple’s affinity for harping on impressive data points and remarkable sales figures is so deeply embedded within the company’s DNA that Steve Jobs once made a pastime out of blasting Amazon for its refusal to release Kindle sales figures.

All analyst eyes were on Apple’s guidance for the next quarter, and the company confirmed rumours that it would suggest a drop in revenue – offering guidance that the second quarter of 2016 would be between 50 billion and 53 billion United States dollars (£35bn-£37bn), down from 58 billion (£40bn) in the same quarter past year. “In India”, Cook said, “the median age for the population is 27”. For example, Apple said it has 10 million subscribers paying for its streaming music service.

We’re seeing extreme conditions unlike anything we’ve experienced before just about everywhere we look.

According to Kuo’s note to investors, reported yesterday by Apple Insider, the “mostly iterative” four-inch iPhone 5se is likely to be met with “tepid” demand by consumers. The new phone will be the same size as the iPhone 5S, and is expected to replace it, adding a faster processor and the capability to use Apple Pay, the company’s wireless payment service. The first such endeavor was signaled by the release of the iPhone 5C in 2013, but the aforementioned device wasn’t received too well by the market (although it did sell quite well by most standards) on account that it was too pricey for an iPhone 5 wrapped in plastic.

Applauding the economic reforms unveiled by India, tech giant Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said the world’s third largest smartphone market presents a “very good business environment” going ahead.

Marc Mathieu, Chief Marketing Officer of Samsung Electronics America said: “In today’s cluttered world, it’s important to break out and create unique, personal experiences that people are seeking in order to connect directly with consumers”.

On the one hand, this is perfectly reasonable, given Apple’s reliance on the iPhone to drive top- and bottom-line growth.

Judging from the apocalyptic response to its Q1 2016 earnings, Apple’s era of dominance is coming to a close. Is the iPhone 5se Apple’s fallback plan? 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. Even when sales began to level out in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, China was a buffer, promising a massive market of newly middle-class customers looking for a high-end, brand-name smartphone.