For many years now, Apple has been a largely profitable company with revenue that seems to be increasing on an annual basis. However as the saying goes, what goes up must come down, and it seems that tomorrow Apple is expected to for the first time since 2001 announce a decline in annual revenue.
Prior to this, earlier this year Apple announced for the first time a drop in iPhone sales, although this isn’t so much that the product is to blame, but rather the saturation and maturity of the smartphone market, especially when faced with the threat of cheaper alternatives from Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi, Oppo, and Huawei, just to name a few.
According to VentureBeat, it is expected that Apple will be disclosing $215.6 billion in annual revenue, which would be a drop of a little over $18 billion compared to the fiscal year of 2015 where Apple reported $233.72 billion in annual revenue. This pretty much puts an end to the streak that Apple has been enjoying since 2001.
It is possible that maybe the iPhone 7 sales will surprise us all and actually sees Apple grow in annual revenue, but VentureBeat reckons that it seems unlikely. Even if the sales are better than expected, it seems unlikely that it will be enough to make up for $18 billion. In any case this hardly spells the end of Apple as companies do go through cycles of up and down, so here’s hoping the new MacBooks and 2017’s revamped iPhone will see the company report better numbers for next year.
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