Apple’s revenue falls for the first time since 2003

Apple announced this Tuesday, April 26, a quarterly revenue drop of 13%, its first revenue drop in more than a decade. In one year, revenues have gone from 58,000 million dollars to 50,000, according to the BBC. What explains this drop? The decline in sales of its flagship product, the iPhone, of which 10 million fewer units have been sold than in the same period last year, due to the saturation of the smartphone market. This has been especially noticeable in China, where sales have fallen by 26%. The US firm did not have an excessive problem with the slowdown in sales in mature markets, as it compensated for it with sales growth in China. The result of this last quarter is not really a surprise since in January Apple reduced the number of iPhone orders shipped to Chinese manufacturers.

The decline in sales of iPhones has not been offset by the commitment of the Apple Watch – with quarterly sales of 1,000 million dollars -, nor by the iPad – which has had eight consecutive months of decline -. Macs have also sold 600,000 fewer units than in the same period of the previous year, and Apple already generates more revenue from its services than from selling Macs: Apple services, including the App Store, Apple Pay or Apple Music, have increased 20% in sales. Some voices suggest that this type of event marks the end of the golden age of hardware manufacturers, after the peak of the smartphone boom. Geoff Blaber of CCS Insight points out that “the sector is at an impasse between the mobile boom and what is to come in the different applications of the Internet of Things”.