Apple Falls After Forecast for First Sales Drop Since 2003
- Holiday quarter smartphone shipments fall short of estimates
- Company starting to see `softness' in China, CFO Maestri says
Will Slowing iPhone Sales Rot Apple’s Core Growth?
Apple Inc. fell the most in five months after forecasting a sales decline for the first time in more than a decade, adding to evidence that the market for smartphones is becoming saturated and that expansion in China is no longer enough to maintain the company’s unprecedented run of growth.
Revenue in the first three months of the year will be $50 billion to $53 billion, Apple said Tuesday, the first quarterly drop since 2003 and below analysts’ estimates for $55.5 billion. That follows a holiday quarter in which overall sales and iPhone shipments fell short of projections, reinforcing concerns that Apple is reaching the limits of iPhone growth and that a push in China won’t make up for a slowdown in the rest of the world -- a sentiment that’s fueled a stock slide of 20 percent in the past six months.