Apple Forecasted to Report First Quarterly Revenue Decline Since 2003

[kdarling]

... I'm pretty sure Tim let's Jony call all the shots. Hence why we have the ugly looking 6 and 6S. Steve wouldn't have allowed that.

Sometimes I wonder if Ive is the one who brought up an Apple car, too, after Newson worked on the Watch with him.

After all, Newson has also designed cars, yachts, chairs, shoes, you name it. He probably tweaked Ive's nose a bit about him simply being a computer case designer

Tim probably couldn't tell you how a CPU even works. Tim soley relies on everyone below him, while Steve could have talked about how a CPU, design, apps, etc. etc. work.

Jobs had no more idea than Cook, about how that stuff works in detail. He had almost no technical talent beyond perhaps doing some soldering for others. He was neither an engineer nor programmer.

What Jobs was, is the ultimate user with the power to get others to cater to his personal desires and tastes for simplicity and beauty. That's what Apple needs again.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I never got the impression that Tim Cook doesn't put 100% of his being into Apple. To imply that he doesn't care or isn't trying hard enough is ridiculous.
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"One hit wonder"? That's 100% incorrect.

Ok I forgot about the Apple Watch. If it is a really hot seller like most Apple fans claim then Apple revenue should not be declining. The Apple Watch should be making up the difference.

 

[SusanK]

This decline would have happened even if Steve Jobs were still alive and running Apple. No product can grow forever.

I disagree. This is not a Cook is not Steve issue. Cook is not the right person to lead Apple. Product driven passion is missing. New Apple products were exciting. Now it's just a rinse and repeat of products that were on the market when Cook took over. I don't even count the watch.

Spending every moment trying to take away from the product to save a penny led to this. Apple is a one trick pony with the iPhone. Innovation is dead. The company need someone who can innovate and excite. Cook has no clue.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

Ok I forgot about the Apple Watch. If it is a really hot seller like most Apple fans claim then Apple revenue should not be declining. The Apple Watch should be making up the difference.

The odd thing in the recent keynote Cook proclaimed the Watch as the best selling smart watch in the world.

I knew he was full of it and talking out of his a$$.

 

[147798]

The odd thing in the recent keynote Cook proclaimed the Watch as the best selling smart watch in the world.

I knew he was full of it and talking out of his a$$.

I think actually the issue is that the watch market is small, so they're the leader in a small market.

 

[I7guy]

I disagree. This is not a Cook is not Steve issue. Cook is not the right person to lead Apple. Product driven passion is missing. New Apple products were exciting. Now it's just a rinse and repeat of products that were on the market when Cook took over. I don't even count the watch.

Spending every moment trying to take away from the product to save a penny led to this. Apple is a one trick pony with the iPhone. Innovation is dead. The company need someone who can innovate and excite. Cook has no clue.

For somebody that is not the right person there has been record breaking quarter after record breaking quarter. Don't need innovation when your company takes in 231 billion dollars a year.

 

[smorrissey]

Stupid marketing decisions you take Apple

The Iphone 5 SE having the same processor and RAM as the expensive iphone 6s released just a few month ago??? good luck with your future "sales".

 

[DakotaGuy]

Tim forgot that apple is not just about iphones - it's about the ecosystem that works seamlessly together. That includes COMPUTERS!!!!

12% of revenue from Macs? It's hardly worth the effort at this point. Tim and Apple management understand this and it is why you see less and less effort when it comes to OSX and Macs. Sadly they just don't matter enough to spend a lot of resources, specially product lines like the Mac Pro. There is no point in wasting a lot of engineering resources on certain low margin products. They are better off to shift those resources to the iDevice products. That is where they are making huge revenues and profits.

 

[neutralguy]

This decline would have happened even if Steve Jobs were still alive and running Apple. No product can grow forever.

I don't agree. Steve would have tried to take all these products into a different level. Tim does not have that capability. Always remember Ivy is a designer, not a thinker. Steve was the thinker. Now we have a designer and logistic manager. A product company is missing the real innovator!

 

[Rocketman]

The recent consensus bottom in AAPL is $92, so anywhere between 92 and 95 is a buy, stronger nearer the bottom of the range.

The iPhone product line is a growth annuity for AAPL. It has no visible endpoint. There will be faster LTE again in 2017.

AAPL is a value stock at a PE of 11.1 and a dividend stock with 1.99% increasing yield for a given cost basis, and a growth stock with a ROE of 59%.

Typical product margins are near 40%.

Tim, please offer a double battery option on the flagship product.

 

[routine_analyst]

Very good. Their last September event was incredibly lacklustre, and especially last March's event that mainly revolved around left overs. (Things that could've been released last year but weren't to avoid cannibalising their own products)

They need a drastic attitudinal shift.

You mean you believe they shouldn't have an old lady of a CEO standing on stage congratulating everyone on everything they did in the past anymore?

"Great job guys. We are the best. We have always been the best, therefore we are the best. Look at all the great stuff we have done in the past. That means we are the best." – Dr. Cook

“There’s an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been. And we’ve always tried to do that at Apple.” – Steve Jobs

 

[thespacekid]

Oh, no, the end of Apple /sarcasm

 

[SusanK]

For somebody that is not the right person there has been record breaking quarter after record breaking quarter. Don't need innovation when your company takes in 231 billion dollars a year.

The products were there. Cook's claim to fame is making it bigger or smaller. Cook's pettiness is annoying and will cost sales. The first generation iPad mini had an outdated chip out of the box. Cook's way of trying to force a purchase of the larger device. Put the current chip in and charge for it.

Apple customers were never shopping price. Apple products were always made better and better and priced accordingly. We are not junk shoppers. We know when a product is watered down.

Cook is not CEO material for Apple. He may be for another company but not Apple. We expect more.

 

[MacBH928]

I am not fond of Cook, but...

You can't compare him to Jobs. There was just 1 Jobs in human history, I give him credit for keeping the company floating within the same level of success. There were many other instances where when the manager changed, the organization crumbles.

Plus, when Jobs came along there was a ton of area for improvement. The only improvement areas I see today is the hardware sepcs wihch was lackluster since Steve's days (I don't know why they do this) and their 16GB storage.

 

[smorrissey]

Jobs was the man. i remember when he was alive the iTunes software for Windows was updated and improved constantly, now with Cook it is completely abandoned...

 

[ignatius345]

He's guided Apple to outstanding profits, but has not shown that he can take Apple to new heights in the long-term. The Apple Watch is not a worthy successor to the Mac, the iPhone and the iPad, in my opinion.

We've gotten used to Apple coming up with the next "big thing" that didn't exist before in any kind of consumer-ready way, but Apple hasn't put out anything truly category-creating in a while.

The Macintosh with its GUI and mouse-based interface created a new category. Windows definitely ran with the idea, of course (for better or worse).

The iPod and iTunes Music Store created a new category. Remember, digital music sales didn't really exist before this. Nobody ever came close to copying the iPod or iTunes Store.

The iPhone with its multitouch display and App Store created a new category in a huge way that has now been replicated by everyone. The iPad did a great job of scaling up that form factor, replacing all the weak tablets that had been out up to that point.

Now we have the Apple Watch. It's nice but -- correct me if I'm wrong -- it's definitely nowhere near the "must have" that a lot of the above products became.

So, what's next?

 

[igorsky]

Take away the iPhone and see what remains? Without the iPhone Apple would be a tiny shell of it's former self. This is fact. Argue all you want that the Mac or Apple Watch or Apple Music are the big revenue makers for Apple and you'd be wrong. Between the iPhone and (to a lesser extent) the iPad combined are about 80% of Apple's revenue. 80% isn't a lot? Heck it's almost the whole company in 2 product lines.

Apple generates more revenue from the iPad than Google generates from all of its businesses combined...are you aware of this fact? Nobody is denying the fact that the iPhone is the main driver for Apple's business; this is an obvious statement that everyone is aware of. But to say that Apple is a "one trick pony" because of the iPhone shows complete ignorance of Apple's income statement.

 

[Mike MA]

I feel that Tim Cook's time as caretaker CEO is done.

He's guided Apple to outstanding profits, but has not shown that he can take Apple to new heights in the long-term. The Apple Watch is not a worthy successor to the Mac, the iPhone and the iPad, in my opinion.

In the five years that he has been CEO, he has never shown the passion for Apple products that Steve Jobs did. As a result, the public has become less enthusiastic also.

Finally, the area that Apple most needs attention is services. Eddy Cue is not the right man to lead this area, to put it mildly. Apple needs a major culture change to instil the right ethos for making high quality services. It goes against their traditional culture in a fundamental way, and requires strong leadership to overcome resistance in Apple. Tim Cook is not able to give this leadership, nor does he have the headhunting chops to find the right person; he is too nice, and doesn't have the sharpness in this field.

It's time for new blood.

I might second that. Everything what followed under Cook, most surely have been some logical evolutions of already existing. But I can be wrong. I guess he's probably just a brilliant CFO, but not the needed mastermind. Maybe Craig?

This decline would have happened even if Steve Jobs were still alive and running Apple. No product can grow forever.

Well, this is speculations, which is always easily stated during such discussions. Maybe the Apple Watch or OS might have looked different. But also under Steve there were dry periods.

 

[neutralguy]

My belief is that Apple doesn't want the stock at a high level for the moment, they are still luring in engineers for the car project and a low stockprice has more potential to grow thus the options they get.

If that was true, Apple would allow its stock to fall further and won't be investing in buy back!

 

[KdParker]

Ok I forgot about the Apple Watch. If it is a really hot seller like most Apple fans claim then Apple revenue should not be declining. The Apple Watch should be making up the difference.

Lower price point on the Apple Watch would increase sales and revenue.

 

[igorsky]

The odd thing in the recent keynote Cook proclaimed the Watch as the best selling smart watch in the world.

I knew he was full of it and talking out of his a$$.

You don't know what you're talking about. Apple Watch is the best-selling smartwatch in the world. It's not even close.

 

[ignatius345]

This decline would have happened even if Steve Jobs were still alive and running Apple. No product can grow forever.

True, no product can grow forever -- which is why Steve Jobs kept inventing new categories of products that didn't exist before.

 

[OllyW]

Jobs was the man. i remember when he was alive the iTunes software for Windows was updated and improved constantly, now with Cook it is completely abandoned...

That's because iTunes was essential for setting up, syncing and updating your iPods, iPhones and iPads back then.

 

[radus]

I sincerely hope you do not encounter them, but the horrible display/graphics bugs (and numerous other issues) in both the Surface and XPS products firmly eliminated those from replacing my rMBP.

Here's to hoping for some great new Macs this summer.

I lost part of my hope, had no more or less problems compared to the rMacBook Pro 15" late 2015 16gb, 1TB ssd which i use at work;
but much more functions like onenote pen input, touch display ( I like it ), for the xps user replaceable parts ...

 

[Razeus]

Personally I rather see iPhones and iOS updates every other year.

I think Tim is afraid to control Jony's vision and I think he doesn't understand how creatives think. He's the CEO and should have had the guts to keep Jony under restraint. It's pretty bad that he made Jony the Chief Creative Officer so he can run rampant with his work.

The other thing is the CEO needs to tell Marketing to back off and let him decide. Not the other way around. Steve hammered the marketing guys and said " this is my decision and we go this way. Not yours ".

Tim is too timid and appears to rely on Marketing for ideas. This is exactly what I think has been going on. Among other things.

If Tim was smart, he'd be transitioning Apple into a SERVICES company. We all know we won't see the "next big thing" for a while. Smartphones and tablets is the new shift, with laptops following in third place.

What Apple needs to do is get more VP's for it's services division instead of Cue trying to handle it all. Those Service's VP's should be working with programmers and designers to keep Apple's look and feel, but make sure they are up and running the first time.

What Services VP would they need?

Enterprise - for email, calendar, reminders, and productivity apps, find my iPhone
iTunes - your playing and syncing music, movies, books, etc., all your content.
Apple Store - apps, games, music, movies, books, etc. Unified outside of iTunes.
Family - photos, app sharing, health, maps
Apple Music - music subscription, ties together with iTunes to grab music you have that Apple doesn't
Apple Pay - self explanatory
Siri - self explanatory.

All of this is tied together buy iCloud, which would work much better if they started implementing machine learning.