Apple Forecasted to Report First Full-Year Revenue Decline Since 2001

[MacRumors]

Apple will report its fiscal fourth quarter earnings results later today, and both the company and analysts project a year-over-year decline in iPhone sales and overall revenue for a third consecutive quarter. Apple will then have posted its first full-year revenue decline since 2001, with the decline expected to continue through the holiday quarter. Wall Street projects Apple will return to growth in 2017.

Apple previously forecasted September quarter revenue of between $45.5 billion and $47.5 billion, which would be up to 12 percent lower than the $51.5 billion in revenue it posted in the year-ago quarter. The consensus among analysts is around $47 billion in revenue, at the higher end of Apple's guidance, according to earnings estimates aggregated by Philip Elmer-DeWitt and Jim Edwards.

Apple analyst Neil Cybart of Above Avalon has forecasted declining sales across Apple's entire core product lineup, including 43.7 million iPhones, 9.1 million iPads, 5 million Macs, and 1.9 million Apple Watch units. One continued bright spot for Apple is expected to be its services category, projected to rise 20% to $6.1 billion on the strength of the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, and AppleCare.

Apple analyst Brian White of Drexel Hamilton continues to recommend AAPL stock to investors, noting that shares remain undervalued. His price targets remains $185, or nearly 57% higher than Apple's $117.86 price at the time this article was published. White believes Apple's "sales, profit and iPhone cycle have bottomed" and that iPhone 8 sales can drive another year of growth.

Apple will report its fiscal fourth quarter earnings at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time, followed by a conference call to discuss the results at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time. MacRumors will be providing full coverage of Apple's earnings results alongside a live transcript of the call. Check back for the latest updates.

Article Link: Apple Forecasted to Report First Full-Year Revenue Decline Since 2001

 

[macfacts]

Do services include iPhone repairs and exchanging out yellow tinted screens?

 

[BenTrovato]

Not thaaat surprising. They update the Macs every 3 years & remove headphone jacks for no reason. Then they proceed to focus a LOT on watches and store presentations. Surely they must have seen it coming.

 

[theitsage]

It's your wake up call, Apple.

 

[tibi08]

All because they forgot about the Macs...

 

[8692574]

You don't say.... obsolete HW for 2 years...who would have thought!!!

 

[DCINKC]

Let the bashing begin along with "where are the MacBook Pros" and "if Steve were alive"...

 

[jmh600cbr]

just wait till the macbooks come out

 

[NT1440]

It's your wake up call, Apple.

Wake up call how? They're clearly on the verge of a new product cycle across nearly all of their devices, minus iPhones.

 

[deputy_doofy]

Well, it's been so long since truly updated Macs have been released. Some seriously pent up demand...

 

[satchmo]

I'm not asking for Cook's head, but I do hope shareholders ask him the hard questions.
Like any CEO, he's accountable when things are good and when things take a downturn.

That said, lets's keep things in perspective. 45 BILLION in ONE quarter!...any company would kill for that kind of revenue.

 

[tkukoc]

To keep that kind of total up.. year after year is an insane task.. they are bound to go down at some point.. then back up.. that's how things go. Just because it says Apple doesn't mean it's instant profit anymore. Technology is changing, people have more choices.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Put headphone jack, increase sales

 

[magicschoolbus]

Well that's what happens when you do not have any new products..

 

[jam3andy]

Mr. Cook is fortunate Carl Ichan dumped his AAPL shares earlier this year.

 

[mattburley7]

good thing there is a event on thursday to help them get out of there decline...

 

[JLL]

Wake up call how? They're clearly on the verge of a new product cycle across nearly all of their devices, minus iPhones.

Including iPhones. There are only about 10 days of iPhone 7 sales in the quarter that will be reported today.

 

[LizKat]

#Doomed

Yeah once again, but the death knell counter's still stuck on 999, I think it's rigged.

 

[Three141]

Strange times; Apple make record breaking profits it was doom and gloom, Apple make less profit it's doom and gloom.

I won't pretend to be a business expert but stuff like this makes me wish more companies did a Dell.

 

[realeric]

I'm not surprised. No new Mac pros, no new iMacs, no new Mac mini, only iPhone 6se... I meant iPhone 7/+. Unuseful Apple watch junks, iPad lagging behind MS surface, no new Apple TV services, Siri like 6 year old kids...

Apple need new CEO. Seriously.

 

[meduzarija]

The end result is great, considering what they did with their Computer hardware.

 

[Pakaku]

A revenue decline, but still making 47 billion? Oh yeah, I'm sure Apple is scared.

 

[NT1440]

Including iPhones. There are only about 10 days of iPhone 7 sales in the quarter that will be reported today.

Ah, that's true when looking at it from the quarterly timeframe, good catch.

 

[Essenar]

Even if the MacBooks refresh and they're great, I still don't trust them.
I went balls deep into the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro and look where that got me. Invested into a system that got a marginal VRAM bump the next year, thankfully a CPU refresh. Then 2014 came around... Then 2015 came around...
What was my reward for investing into their eco system? Tim Cook telling me I can get my work done with a damn iPad.
No Tim. No I can't.
My job is literally to build applications for the iPad, and now I can't do it as well because I'm on inferior technology.
What's next? We invest heavily into this generation of MacBook Pro's, maybe get one very mild subtle GPU upgrade next year and be stuck on Skylake CPU's for four years?
We should not be rewarding this type of treatment from a manufacturer we are supposed to trust.
I don't want to use a stupid iPad for my work. I want a discrete GPU, and a powerful processor, and a MagSafe port, and ThunderBolt, and HDMI, and USB 3.0 ports.
I'm not gonna drive around and tell Patriot, SanDisk, Corsair and all my accessory manufacturers to build USB C now or I'm leaving. I have a keyboard. I like it. I don't want to replace it. It's better than any of your keyboards. It uses USB 3.0. I don't want to put it on a stupid dongle. My mouse? It's better than any of your mice. It uses USB 3.0. I don't want to put it on a stupid dongle.
I was going to buy a Thunderbolt display. I don't want to connect it to a stupid dongle. So now I will not buy a Thunderbolt display.
I, and apparently millions of other people, are speaking with our wallets. We're telling you nothing but USB C ports are stupid. Lighter and thinner is stupid at this extreme. Taking away discrete graphics from your 15" macbook unless we spend another $500 is stupid. Making the MacBook PRO more like the neutered, gimmicky, Starbucks Macbook 12" is stupid, getting rid of the MacBook Air is stupid, removing the headphone jack is stupid. You're not being courageous, you're being stupid. And stupid people lose money and that's exactly what happened to you this year. You lost money compared to last year.

 

[Michael Scrip]

#Doomed

Exactly... they'll only report $45 billion in revenue and $9 billion in profit for the quarter.

How will they survive?

Look... I know corporations are all about growth. But no company can have growth forever.

It's crazy to expect Apple to.