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Shares plunge as iPhone plateaus

By: Peter Svensson

Posted: 01/24/2013 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Patrick Tehan / MCT Archives Sales of iPhones are slowing down. (TRIBUNE MEDIA MCT)

NEW YORK -- Apple Inc. warned Wednesday the blockbuster sales growth of the last five years is slowing drastically, as iPhone sales are starting to plateau.

The outlook sent Apple shares plunging by 10 per cent, wiping out a year's worth of gains.

Analysts said the warning suggested Apple can no longer sustain its growth without some completely new product. Its last revolutionary product launch was the iPad in 2010.

"It has been an overriding concern with Apple that they would not be able to generate revenue growth just rolling out new versions of old products," said Jeff Sica, president and chief investment officer of SICA Wealth Management. "Now they've proven it in their numbers."

Apple said it expects sales of between $41 billion and $43 billion in the current quarter, which ends in March. That would usually be little cause for concern, even though analysts were expecting $45.6 billion, because Apple usually lowballs its forecasts. But Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company is changing its practices and providing a reasonable range rather than a single, easily achievable number.

That means Apple is looking at sales growth of about seven per cent from last year's January to March quarter, a striking number for a company that's posted double-digit increases in every quarter except one since 2008.

Apple shares fell $51.48 to $462.59, in extended trading, after the release of the results.

Apple's enviable profit growth also hit a wall in the October to December quarter. It said net income in the fiscal first quarter was $13.1 billion, or $13.81 per share, flat with a year ago. That still beat expectations, as analysts polled by FactSet had forecast earnings of $13.48 per share.

Revenue was $54.5 billion, up 18 per cent from a year ago. Analysts were expecting $55 billion.

Apple shipped 47.8 million iPhones in the quarter, about 1 million less than analysts were expecting, and 22.9 million iPads, also about 1 million short.

Most surprisingly, Mac sales were also one million short, at 4.1 million. That's a 22 per cent drop from shipments a year ago. Oppenheimer said this was due to difficulties producing enough of the new iMac desktops fast enough.

Investors have already been concerned Apple's strategy of keeping the price of the iPhone high means it's losing out on sales. Consumers are instead opting to buy cheaper smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android software, which has propelled South Korea's Samsung Electronics to the world's largest maker of smartphones.

There's speculation the company will produce a cheaper iPhone, but that would cut into its stunning profits.

Apple had warned the holiday quarter's profits would be lower than Wall Street was expecting, because it had so many new products coming out, including the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. New production lines are more expensive to run and yield more defective products that need to be redone or thrown out rather than sold.

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 24, 2013 B7

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