Apple Hit With Securities Fraud Lawsuit for Hiding iPhone Sales Drop

Apple is facing a class action lawsuit accusing the company of securities fraud for making false statements and failing to disclose adverse information regarding its business prospects. These actions allegedly led to an artificially inflated stock price.

Specifically, the lawsuit claims that Apple was not initially forthcoming about a drop in demand for the iPhone due to poor sales in China and the 2018 battery replacement program, both of which contributed to lower than expected ‌iPhone‌ sales in the first fiscal quarter of 2019.

iphonexr
Apple is also accused of hiding the fact that production orders from suppliers had been slashed and prices had been cut, Apple's decision not to provide unit sales for iPhones and other hardware is also cited as a method Apple used to cause stock prices to rise to $209 per share.

When Apple did reveal the dip in ‌iPhone‌ sales and announced that it would not make its quarterly revenue forecast, Apple's stock fell $15 per share from $157.92 on January 2 to $142.19 per share on January 3. According to the lawsuit, Apple knew its ‌iPhone‌ sales weren't on track months before the information was shared.

The lawsuit, filed by the City of Roseville employees' retirement fund, is aiming to recover damages on behalf of people who purchased Apple stock between November 2, 2018 and January 2, 2019. Tim Cook and Luca Maestri are both named as defendants.

Update: A second law firm has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple, which is essentially identical to the first lawsuit. It also accuses Apple of securities fraud for concealing the ‌iPhone‌'s decline in sales.

Popular Stories

2024 iPhone Boxes Feature

Apple Adjusts Trade-In Values for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and More

Thursday November 6, 2025 11:12 am PST by
Apple today updated its trade-in values for select iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models. Trade-ins can be completed on Apple's website, or at an Apple Store. The charts below provide an overview of Apple's current and previous trade-in values in the U.S., according to its website. Maximum values for most devices either decreased or saw no change, but the iPad Air received a slight bump. ...
Finder Siri Feature

Apple's New Siri Will Be Powered By Google Gemini

Wednesday November 5, 2025 11:57 am PST by
The smarter, more capable version of Siri that Apple is developing will be powered by Google Gemini, reports Bloomberg. Apple will pay Google approximately $1 billion per year for a 1.2 trillion parameter artificial intelligence model that was developed by Google. For context, parameters are a measure of how a model understands and responds to queries. More parameters generally means more...
Liquid Glass General Feature

Apple Shares Liquid Glass Design Gallery

Thursday November 6, 2025 2:45 pm PST by
Apple is promoting the new Liquid Glass design in iOS 26, showing off the ways that third-party developers are embracing the aesthetic in their apps. On its developer website, Apple is featuring a visual gallery that demonstrates how "teams of all sizes" are creating Liquid Glass experiences. The gallery features examples of Liquid Glass in apps for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac. Apple...
iOS 26

iOS 26.1 Available Now With These 8 New Features

Monday November 3, 2025 5:54 am PST by
Following more than a month of beta testing, Apple released iOS 26.1 on Monday, November 3. The update includes a handful of new features and changes, including the ability to adjust the look of Liquid Glass and more. Below, we outline iOS 26.1's key new features. Liquid Glass Toggle iOS 26.1 lets you choose your preferred look for Liquid Glass. In the Settings app, under Display...
airtag purple

Apple's Website Lists AirTag 4-Pack at Shockingly Low Price [Updated]

Friday November 7, 2025 6:40 am PST by
Apple's online store in the U.S. is suddenly offering a pack of four AirTags for just $29, which is the same price as a single AirTag. This is likely a pricing error, and it is unclear if orders will be fulfilled. Apple has not discounted the AirTag four-pack in any other countries that we checked. Delivery estimates are already pushing into late November to early December, suggesting...
apple watch se 3 always on

Apple to Remove iPhone-Apple Watch Wi-Fi Sync in EU With iOS 26.2

Thursday November 6, 2025 4:37 am PST by
Apple in iOS 26.2 will disable automatic Wi-Fi network syncing between iPhone and Apple Watch in the European Union to comply with the bloc's regulations, suggests a new report. Normally, when an iPhone connects to a new Wi-Fi network, it automatically shares the network credentials with the paired Apple Watch. This allows the watch to connect to the same network independently – for...
ikea smart home devices

IKEA Debuts 21 HomeKit-Compatible Smart Bulbs, Sensors, and Controls

Thursday November 6, 2025 4:08 pm PST by
IKEA today announced the upcoming launch of 21 new Matter-compatible smart home products that will be able to interface with HomeKit and the Apple Home app. There are sensors, lights, and control options, all of which will be reasonably priced. Some of the products are new, while some are updates to existing lines that IKEA previously offered. There are a series of new smart bulbs that are...
Home Hub Command Center with Dome Base Feature

Apple's 2026 Smart Home Revamp: All the Rumors

Wednesday November 5, 2025 3:54 pm PST by
It's been over a decade since Apple's HomeKit smart home platform launched, and it is overdue for an update. HomeKit and the Home app can no longer keep up with AI-powered solutions from other companies like Google and Amazon, but that's set to change with a smart home revamp that Apple has planned for 2026. Home Hub Apple is working on a home hub or "command center" that will serve as a...

Top Rated Comments

ryanwarsaw Avatar
86 months ago
Some people sold their stock too low and now comes the crying.
Score: 39 Votes (Like | Disagree)
thadoggfather Avatar
86 months ago
The fish rots from its head: Tim Crook

Really don't like what the guys been doing over the years, stalling consumer technology progress.

Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Baymowe335 Avatar
86 months ago
Looks like the market is devastated with AAPL up 2% today and marching higher again.

People get mad when then sell stock too low.

They didn’t “hide” anything. They told investors they would no longer report unit sales in 2019, which is their choice. You could sell if you thought that ruined the company (lol).

Tons of public companies don’t report metrics investors might like to know. Ever look at Google’s financials? Impossible to understand. No Pixel sales. Microsoft doesn’t report unit sales for their hardware and Samsung doesn’t even report Galaxy unit sales.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
86 months ago
He is scum and a charlatan.
He’s a great philanthropic law-abiding citizen who has done more for the world than almost anyone posting here.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AngerDanger Avatar
86 months ago
The fish rots from its head: Tim Crook
Let's try this again…



In this case, we're talking about the head that revolutionized Apple's supply chain, buying up millions of CNC machines the early 200s, and enabling Jony Ive's designs to be realized on a mass scale, right? Prior to Cook's intervention, Macs were made in multiple countries with parts being flown back and forth at various stages of assembly. A part from California would by flown to Amsterdam for additional work before being flown back to California.

Really don't like what the guys been doing over the years, stalling consumer technology progress.
Again, he's responsible for coordinating manufacturing that every tech company on the world has adopted as standard. I just got done with Ive's biography, and it seems to me that people advocating against Cook have a rather myopic view of Apple.

At the turn of the century, Apple was like every other tech company; engineers made things and then designers added their "skinned" them. Jobs returned a few days before Ive wanted to quit and reemphasized Apple's ethos: to make great products.

Everything was turned on its head. Function followed form; if the Mac mini were a couple mm larger, it could've housed a less expensive full-sized drive, but Ive and Jobs had twenty models constructed and liked the feeling of the ever-so-slightly-smaller design.

The unibody enclosures that are now characteristic of Apple products were only possible because of the manufacturing Tim secured, the complaints that Animoji and other superficial **** are taking focus away from functionality mirror those of people who believed that Apple's stupid attention to form inhibited function. And Apple's prices have always sucked; the Mac, the iMac, and the iPod were all extremely pricey relative to the competition and their own intended prices.

Nonetheless, Apple has pushed the industry forward, and each of Ive's reductionist designs are copied by all of the competition about half a decade later. No disk drive on the iMac, no CD drive on 2012 MacBooks, and no headphone jack on the iPhone. Some of these decisions were executed under Jobs and are now carried out by Tim.

tl;dr: you can put an "r" between "C" and "ook" all you want, you can claim you're thinking different (even though it's similar to a lotta thinking on this site), but that doesn't change the fact that the Animoji-obsessed, price gouging Tim Cook has pushed the industry forward and is partially responsible for all of Apple's success since the early 2000s.

Attachment Image
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
oghowie Avatar
86 months ago
These lawsuits are so dumb.

What if I told you Apple stock is back at $200 now?
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)