Apple saw it coming. People no longer buy enough new iPhones that CEO Tim Cook and his team already anticipated a slump in iPhone sales in January.
On April 26, Apple confirmed what many industry experts have already been expecting. The tech company reported the first ever drop in iPhone sales since it launched its flagship smartphone in 2007.
The world's most valuable company sold fewer iPhones than it sold during the same period the previous year with unit shipments in the fiscal second quarter down from 61.1 million to 51.2 million, or a reduction of 16 percent.
The number though is still in line with the 51 million that industry analysts expected the company to sell in the three months that ended in March
The dwindling sales can be attributed to people no longer as excited by the newly released phones like they used to. Virtually everyone talks about new phone releases a few years back, but these releases now seem to have become routine.
The phones no longer have enough new features or changes to offer in the past few years or at least the new ones do not get people to buy a new model every year.
The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the current flagship phones of the company, for instance, did not have enough new features to get customers to trade up their older phones.
During the company's earnings announcement, Cook said that unfavorable currency exchange rates and tough economy have something to do with the drop in sales. China, one of the most important markets of the company providing 32.1 percent of the sales at the end of the previous year, currently has a grim economic outlook.
For some, the decline is something to be expected. Many investors think that following years of blockbuster sales, the iPhone already reached saturation. People who want to have an iPhone often already have one, particularly consumers who live in the U.S.
"Apple needs to come up with a radical new innovation or product rather than just the current incremental improvements to existing products. This is the only way in which it will reinvigorate sales growth," said Neil Saunders, chief executive of Conlumino, a research firm.
