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.
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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.
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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.
Top Rated Comments
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.
When iTunes came about no one had to read a manual to use it. It would behave as one would expect it to. Today, not a living soul on this planet having never used iTunes would be able to play a song without watching tutorials on youtube. They have optimized iTunes to a degree where you actually have to learn HOW to use it. That is something that was NOT the case earlier...
Same with Messages in iOS 10. Before one could send messages and with the push of a very obvious button one could add a photo. Today nothing about messages is obvious and one has to push two buttons that aren't obvious to attach a photo..
iOS camera - used to be great and still it if you turn back time 6 years. Every time I turn to iOS to take a photo, which is about 10 times a day, I get angry and frustrated because the camera is dumb as bread. And such goes deeper. Imagine I would have 10 great experiences with iOS per day, the possibility of me recommending Apple and iOS to others would increase exponentially. Same goes for other people I know.
Whereas 5 years ago, I would be an avid Apple-Recommendor... Today, I doesnt even cross my mind to recommend Apple. And SUCH is a clear indicator of a dangerous future.
The visions vanished with Steve Jobs. Tim Cook who had been working along side him many years was passed the steering wheel. But only in lack of finding someone else. Which compared with Jobs is a diff. task. Had Cook been as good or greater than Steve, he would have taken the reigns prior to him passing... Cook taking the reigns of Apple is like the pilot passing on the Steering wheel of a Boeing 747 to the first Steward. Latter I have no doubt did a great job in the overall operation of flying from a to b. But just because he was able to accomplish that task does not make him able to fly not to mention land that plane
When it runs out of fuel it will crash unless someone is able to really take the reigns and land it safely. Right now Apple IMO is a plane flying on fumes of the past-visions of someone who is unfortunately no longer with us ;(