Apple Forecasts First Sales Dip In 13 Years

“There are a lot of economies around the world that are in recession”. He also said that the company now has $1 billion active devices.

“Apple became the number one smartphone company in China in the last quarter, which was just huge for them”, Buster Hein, the editor of the Cult of Mac website told the BBC.

A recent Counterpoint Research report also claimed that Apple had sold 800,000 iPhones in India in the fourth quarter of 2015. Earnings amounted to 3.28 dollars a share, which beat the 3.23 average forecast among analysts surveyed by FactSet. He explained that less than half of all iPhone owners now use a new, larger screen model.

Late past year the Federal government passed tax avoidance laws, forcing companies with a global turnover of $1 billion or more to provide greater transparency.

Sales of the company’s flagship smartphone climbed 76 per cent in the country from the year-ago quarter, Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said on the call. Gross margin was 40.1 percent compared to 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter and worldwide sales accounted for 66 percent of the total quarter’s revenue. However, we should not forget that the base is quite small when compared to China. “I don’t subscribe to the doom-and-gloom predictions”.

He also noted that Apple’s services business is now growing faster. Its quarterly profit was listed at $US18.4 billion.

And despite the slowdown, Apple remains the most profitable company in the S&P 500 and the most valuable publicly traded U.S. tech company. But the market is slowing down, making growth harder to find.

And unfortunately for Apple, that “everywhere” does include China.

Apple reported that, overall, a billion iPhones, iPads, Macintosh computers, iPod touch devices, Apple TV units, and Apple Watch wearable computers had “engaged” with its services in the past three months.

The bloom may be off Apple’s iPhone, at least for now. However, the most prominent reason for high sales for the Apple Watch can be very easily attributed to the third party price cuts the smartwatch was exposed to during the holiday season including those by big names in the market, such as Target and Best Buy. Apple’s four software platforms – iOS, OS X, watchOS and tvOS – provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. He said investors don’t yet appreciate that piece of the company’s business.

“Its a clear point that were going to make to anybody who is willing to listen”, he said.