Apple Forecasted to Report First Quarterly Revenue Decline Since 2003

[navaira]

Or they will update all the Macs, add rose gold option to Mac Pro, get rid of spinner drives, drop prices and put out a 5K Thunderbolt display.

(This was a joke everyone. Please don't explain to me how this is not what Apple does. I know.)

 

[TallManNY]

I have some I'm going long, bought a long time ago. That said I watch a lot of fluxes and what not and have hard rules on sales, but it just works.

Well your short certainly worked for you today. Congrats. But I'd take a glance at that $2.5 billion in R&D spend last quarter and try not to be exposed short too long at today's price. Apple has been spending R&D like crazy and it isn't just to make a thinner laptop. You don't burn through an extra 500 million in a quarter compared to last year working on stuff like that. There is stuff in the works, like the Car, that everyone knows about but the market can't even come close to valuing. Then there is other stuff (virtual reality is an obvious one) which Apple successfully hides. If the market comes up with a growth story for Apple that stock will run up.

 

[Dave245]

It's funny how people are moaning that Apple may keep the same design, it's like Apple are the only company to do it, Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are the same design as the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

 

[BillyMatt87]

Or the iPhone 7 will be the blockbuster that it should be and Apple will end up the calendar year with some positive financial surprises.

You seem so sure about that. Considering that the next iPhone will probably be another rehashed 6, sans the headphone jack, it will barely have any selling points to make it stand out. I mean the 6S was not a very exciting update in itself, even for 'S' model standards.

 

[147798]

I believe there will be many bad quarters ahead for Tim Cook at the helm. They might not come as consecutive bad quarters but the good vibes that he's felt will begin to fade as the only thing he's really been good at are numbers. After the numbers continue to disappoint the people who hold large positions in stocks, eg: Carl Ichan (whom I dislike terribly) will begin to call for the replacement of Tim Cook. Because Apple is a publicly traded company with leaders paid mostly in stock options and performance bonuses, the company will continue to buy back stock with it's cash on hand to artificially inflate stock numbers as well as purchase smaller companies. This will most certainly play out well for time sensitive performance based stock vestings, which Cook has plenty... and he'll most certainly (along with other senior VP) cash out their holdings.

Eventually the company will ask Cook to step down and once he steps down they'll place someone even worse in the drivers seat who will be forced by the shareholders to attempt to cut losses (fire people), sell off retail locations and other non-liquid assets and kill product lines that don't make sense by the numbers. This will be sad days because it will most certainly cause Apple to look nothing like it does today and most of the management that remained after Jobs will have left. I imagine all those pretty temple like glass palaces they've built around the world will look beautiful as Burberry stores minus the white Apple at the front... oh wait, weren't these redesigned to remove those now?

I'm sure there will be those that reject these ideas simply because Apple still posts more profits in single product lines than most other companies entire businesses... however, that's not the way the world works... when profits continue to fail to meet expectations of greedy wall street, no matter who you are they will ask you to resign - Steve Jobs included. History repeats itself folks.

You just concluded with "greedy wall street" though the bulk of your argument was about greedy Tim Cook and Sr VPs!

 

[igorsky]

Misinterpret all you want. Steve's record vs Tim's is there for everybody to see.
AAPL dropped $40Billion in value today. No speculation needed. Facts.

Apple is worth more now than it ever was under Steve. Facts.

 

[I7guy]

You seem so sure about that. Considering that the next iPhone will probably be another rehashed 6, sans the headphone jack, it will barely have any selling points to make it stand out. I mean the 6S was not a very exciting update in itself, even for 'S' model standards.

Nobody could know any of this now. Speculation either way is still speculation and I'm all in the speculation arm-chair ceo club that is rampant. The 6s might not be exciting to you, but apple sure sold a ton of them, which means a lot somebodies like it.

 

[wozmatic]

This post is the perfect crescendo after reading pages of complaints about Apple not innovating.

Well they are definitely innovating their price hikes

 

[BillyMatt87]

Nobody could know any of this now. Speculation either way is still speculation and I'm all in the speculation arm-chair ceo club that is rampant. The 6s might not be exciting to you, but apple sure sold a ton of them, which means a lot somebodies like it.

Or maybe people just needed to upgrade from their old devices. Has nothing to do with satisfaction. Stop overhyping everything.

Well they are definitely innovating their price hikes

It's almost like Apple is actively trying to adhere to the "Apple is overpriced" meme instead of trying to prove otherwise.
[doublepost=1461805621][/doublepost]

You just concluded with "greedy wall street" though the bulk of your argument was about greedy Tim Cook and Sr VPs!

Maybe they're all greedy?

 

[I7guy]

Or maybe people just needed to upgrade from their old devices. Has nothing to do with satisfaction. Stop overhyping everything.



It's almost like Apple is actively trying to adhere to the "Apple is overpriced" meme instead of trying to prove otherwise.
[doublepost=1461805621][/doublepost]

Maybe they're all greedy?

Nothing is overhyped, seems there is a bit of underhyping going on.

 

[BillyMatt87]

Nothing is overhyped, seems there is a bit of underhyping going on.

You seem to like twisting my words and avoiding the actual subject. The 6S was simply not that exciting of an update, the 3D touch interface is not very intuitive, the live photos feature feel too gimmicky and if Samsung had done it, you'd be ripping on them for it and the camera update was LONG overdue, it was 8 megapixels for way too long. There was very little in the 6S that gave it an edge over the 6. At least the 4S had Siri and the 5S had Touch ID, what truly unique feature made this 'S' update stand out?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the iPhone 4 was the last truly groundbreaking iPhone since the original. Everything that we take for granted in iOS devices now was introduced back in 2010 with the 4: FaceTime, Retina Display, A-series processors, HD video recording, cutting edge industrial design, etc. Everything after that felt incremental. Sure the 5 gave us LTE and a slightly larger display and the 6 gave us even bigger displays, but when the 4 came out, Apple was still well ahead of everyone else and now they've fallen considerably behind. The Apple I know is a leader, not a follower.

That's my main issue with Apple under Tim Cook, they no longer think different. Everything he's done so far was to follow what the competition had already been doing: flat UIs, phones with larger displays, tablets with smaller displays, smart watches, music streaming, etc. and now they think they can make a car?! No wonder people consider Elon Musk to be more akin to Steve Jobs, that dude is a visionary. The fact that Apple is trying to follow Tesla's lead speaks volumes.

 

[I7guy]

You seem to like twisting my words and avoiding the actual subject. The 6S was simply not that exciting of an update, the 3D touch interface is not very intuitive, the live photos feature feel too gimmicky and if Samsung had done it, you'd be ripping on them for it and the camera update was LONG overdue, it was 8 megapixels for way too long. There was very little in the 6S that gave it an edge over the 6. At least the 4S had Siri and the 5S had Touch ID, what truly unique feature made this 'S' update stand out?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the iPhone 4 was the last truly groundbreaking iPhone since the original. Everything that we take for granted in iOS devices now was introduced back in 2010 with the 4: FaceTime, Retina Display, A-series processors, HD video recording, cutting edge industrial design, etc. Everything after that felt incremental. Sure the 5 gave us LTE and a slightly larger display and the 6 gave us even bigger displays, but when the 4 came out, Apple was still well ahead of everyone else and now they've fallen considerably behind. The Apple I know is a leader, not a follower.

That's my main issue with Apple under Tim Cook, they no longer think different. Everything he's done so far was to follow what the competition had already been doing: flat UIs, phones with larger displays, tablets with smaller displays, smart watches, music streaming, etc. and now they think they can make a car?! No wonder people consider Elon Musk to be more akin to Steve Jobs, that dude is a visionary. The fact that Apple is trying to follow Tesla's lead speaks volumes.

There is a bit of going around in circles because we each don't accept the others opinion. And you don't know what I would say or not about the competitions features, so please don't pretend you would.

Apple, imo, hit the ball out of the park with the 6s. That's my opinion, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

 

[tentales]

Apple is worth more now than it ever was under Steve. Facts.

Genius! 18 quarters later, ANY company would be dead if it wasn't worth *more*. What's your point ?

 

[igorsky]

Genius! 18 quarters later, ANY company would be dead if it wasn't worth *more*. What's your point ?

No idea what this is supposed to mean. How old are you?

My point is that you are the one that brought up comparing Jobs' and Cook's records. Well, facts are that Cook has managed to sell more phones than Jobs did, and has raised Apple's market value to much greater heights than Jobs ever did. You can have a separate debate (hopefully with someone else) as to who is the better CEO, but those are the facts.

 

[Essenar]

All of you defending Apple are the reason Apple is having problems.
Nothing good ever comes from being blind to criticism. You all pout and pound your fists and cry at each other any time people criticize them. Dude, wake up.
Even Steve Jobs wasn't tolerant of mistakes and didn't keep a blind eye to criticism of his brand and legacy.
Right now, they're making mistakes, whether you'd like to admit it or not.
If you were a real fan, you'd acknowledge these mistakes and that way they can improve them and come back stronger. Instead, you'll literally defend them until their sales plummet.
News flash, they care more about the sales they could make than sales they already made. In other words, you are worth LESS to Apple because they already have you, as an avid fan, so why should they make changes to appease you? Whereas, the people who are packing up and leaving? Those are the people who make a difference.
We're being very clear about what we want:
1) You want a thinnovative, lightweight hipster MacBook 15" with one USB port and all that? Fine. but you KEEP a Pro grade notebook on the sku and don't try to tell us what WE want. If we want a laptop with two USB ports, two thunderbolt ports and a 4GB dedicated GPU so we can properly render Open GL ES environments, then keep that for us.
If I decide, hell no, I don't want some stupid paper thin notebook with the processing power of a 2011 MacBook Air, you can't tell me otherwise. It's my money and I choose to take it somewhere else. That's $2000-$2500 in a sale that they just lost. In the case of my department? We use 10 of them, and we all unanimously agreed that if Apple sacrifices ports and power for portability, we're moving on. It's a 15" Notebook, it doesn't have to be as portable as an iPad... That's what the iPad is for, to begin with.

2) Where the heck is the Mac Pro? That Sharper Image garbage disposal unit is NOT a Mac Pro. I don't even know what that thing is but I'm not spending $4000 on it. We've been getting by, inching even with a Hackintosh, but we shouldn't have to be doing that. We were willing to drop $4000 on a Mac Pro. Unfortunately the REAL Mac Pro is discontinued, and I'm not the only person to think this.

3) Stop putting all your eggs in one basket, or rather, all your technical features into one USB-C port. What if that port fails? Well I guess I'm screwed. Good thing I avoided the 12" iPadBook and stuck with my Retina Pro 13" for portability before upgrading to a 15". If I had bought the 12" MacBook, I probably would've just quit Apple instead of moving up to a 15".

I'm not saying you should get rid of those products, but stop introducing them at the cost of taking away the stuff that those of us didn't WANT you to get rid of. I have one foot out the door already.
But hey, you fanboys and fangirls, good job. Just keep yelling at us and telling us we're wrong. That sure makes us want to stay with Apple. And I'm sure Apple and Tim Cook will send you a thank you note for telling all of their lost sales and lost customers that they were wrong. "WE're better off without them Tim! I know what you and Steve liked, I know better, I'm faithful! It'll just be YOU and us!"

 

[I7guy]

All of you defending Apple are the reason Apple is having problems.
Nothing good ever comes from being blind to criticism. You all pout and pound your fists and cry at each other any time people criticize them. Dude, wake up.
Even Steve Jobs wasn't tolerant of mistakes and didn't keep a blind eye to criticism of his brand and legacy.
Right now, they're making mistakes, whether you'd like to admit it or not.
If you were a real fan, you'd acknowledge these mistakes and that way they can improve them and come back stronger. Instead, you'll literally defend them until their sales plummet.
News flash, they care more about the sales they could make than sales they already made. In other words, you are worth LESS to Apple because they already have you, as an avid fan, so why should they make changes to appease you? Whereas, the people who are packing up and leaving? Those are the people who make a difference.
We're being very clear about what we want:
1) You want a thinnovative, lightweight hipster MacBook 15" with one USB port and all that? Fine. but you KEEP a Pro grade notebook on the sku and don't try to tell us what WE want. If we want a laptop with two USB ports, two thunderbolt ports and a 4GB dedicated GPU so we can properly render Open GL ES environments, then keep that for us.
If I decide, hell no, I don't want some stupid paper thin notebook with the processing power of a 2011 MacBook Air, you can't tell me otherwise. It's my money and I choose to take it somewhere else. That's $2000-$2500 in a sale that they just lost. In the case of my department? We use 10 of them, and we all unanimously agreed that if Apple sacrifices ports and power for portability, we're moving on. It's a 15" Notebook, it doesn't have to be as portable as an iPad... That's what the iPad is for, to begin with.

2) Where the heck is the Mac Pro? That Sharper Image garbage disposal unit is NOT a Mac Pro. I don't even know what that thing is but I'm not spending $4000 on it. We've been getting by, inching even with a Hackintosh, but we shouldn't have to be doing that. We were willing to drop $4000 on a Mac Pro. Unfortunately the REAL Mac Pro is discontinued, and I'm not the only person to think this.

3) Stop putting all your eggs in one basket, or rather, all your technical features into one USB-C port. What if that port fails? Well I guess I'm screwed. Good thing I avoided the 12" iPadBook and stuck with my Retina Pro 13" for portability before upgrading to a 15". If I had bought the 12" MacBook, I probably would've just quit Apple instead of moving up to a 15".

I'm not saying you should get rid of those products, but stop introducing them at the cost of taking away the stuff that those of us didn't WANT you to get rid of. I have one foot out the door already.
But hey, you fanboys and fangirls, good job. Just keep yelling at us and telling us we're wrong. That sure makes us want to stay with Apple. And I'm sure Apple and Tim Cook will send you a thank you note for telling all of their lost sales and lost customers that they were wrong. "WE're better off without them Tim! I know what you and Steve liked, I know better, I'm faithful! It'll just be YOU and us!"

I stopped reading after the first sentence.

I should have a problem of only making 40b in a quarter. Apple is doing fine, will be fine, take a deep breath. Looking forward to wwdc, iOS 10 and iPhone 7. Can't wait.

 

[routine_analyst]

You just concluded with "greedy wall street" though the bulk of your argument was about greedy Tim Cook and Sr VPs!

The numbers own Tim Cook. Tim Cook also owns stock. Tim Cook will get his biggest payout with holding the stock the highest until his stock matures. Then the numbers will eventually cause him to be replaced.

 

[I7guy]

The numbers own Tim Cook. Tim Cook also owns stock. Tim Cook will get his biggest payout with holding the stock the highest until his stock matures. Then the numbers will eventually cause him to be replaced.

Okay, he'll be around for about 5 more years then.

 

[btrach144]

They represent the higher end of the market. Unless they plan on selling sub $150 iPhones, they've probably reached saturation.

not with the free 5s for sale.

 

[BillyMatt87]

I stopped reading after the first sentence.

At least try to hear the other side before continuing to delude yourself in the "Apple/Tim Cook is perfect" fantasy world. Ignorance at its finest.

 

[I7guy]

At least try to hear the other side before continuing to delude yourself in the "Apple/Tim Cook is perfect" fantasy world. Ignorance at its finest.

You mean "those who defend Apple are part of the problem"? What an ignorant and biased statement that is. There is no problem. Unless you're bent on harping on how insignificant 40b is.

Now if the downward trend continues for a few years and the company loses big time then there will be a problem.

 

[BillyMatt87]

You mean "those who defend Apple are part of the problem"? What an ignorant and biased statement that is. There is no problem. Unless you're bent on harping on how insignificant 40b is.

Now if the downward trend continues for a few years and the company loses big time then there will be a problem.

To be fair, he makes a valid point. If nobody speaks up and tries to ignore the issues at hand, nothing will change. People blindly defending Apple is exactly what continues to enable them to make stupid and uncharacteristic decisions. As long as people buy their stuff without question, it doesn't matter how half-assed the product actually is, that's called suckering people in.

You like to cling on to the "record sales" narrative as if that's a testament to the continuing quality of the products. Mainstream pop acts like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift sell millions of records and sell out tours, but that does make them the best musicians around? You continue to confuse quantity for quality, the Apple I knew cared more about the latter.

I bet you thought the extremely underwhelming March event was on par with the iPhone introduction in 2007 and the iPad intro in 2010.

 

[I7guy]

To be fair, he makes a valid point. If nobody speaks up and tries to ignore the issues at hand, nothing will change. People blindly defending Apple is exactly what continues to enable them to make stupid and uncharacteristic decisions. As long as people buy their stuff without question, it doesn't matter how half-assed the product actually is, that's called suckering people in.

You like to cling on to the "record sales" narrative as if that's a testament to the continuing quality of the products. Mainstream pop acts like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift sell millions of records and sell out tours, but that does make them the best musicians around? You continue to confuse quantity for quality, the Apple I knew cared more about the latter.

I bet you thought the extremely underwhelming March event was on par with the iPhone introduction in 2007 and the iPad intro in 2010.

Nobody who? The arm-chair CEOs of this board? Isn't the ultimate test of a company their sales, revenue financial health? Not whether 10 people cling to the old jobsian Apple and voice a disproportionate amount of fud and sling thinly-veiled insults when people are not in agreement with their irrational views.

 

[BillyMatt87]

Nobody who? The arm-chair CEOs of this board? Isn't the ultimate test of a company their sales, revenue financial health? Not whether 10 people cling to the old jobsian Apple and voice a disproportionate amount of fud and sling thinly-veiled insults when people are not in agreement with their irrational views.

Sales and revenue should be a part of it but it should not be the entire picture. Apple needs a visionary leader the way Jobs was, to inspire and innovate. To lead the competition, not follow it. The products should speak for themselves, not the sales figures. Going by Apple's track record, they haven't exactly done well without Jobs around so you wonder why people like me remain skeptical of by-the-numbers businessmen like Tim Cook. Apple deserves much better and hopefully they get someone worthy of running such a company.

 

[I7guy]

Sales and revenue should be a part of it but it should not be the entire picture. Apple needs a visionary leader the way Jobs was, to inspire and innovate. To lead the competition, not follow it. The products should speak for themselves, not the sales figures. Going by Apple's track record, they haven't exactly done well without Jobs around so you wonder why people like me remain skeptical of by-the-numbers businessmen like Tim Cook. Apple deserves much better and hopefully they get someone worthy of running such a company.

So one metric of doing well is Apple is valued at what now, let's say over 600b. By any measure that is not doing well? People have been predicting the collapse of Apple for years; one off quarter since 2011 and hyperbole abounds.

TC is doing fine and there won't be any replacements.