«Breaking News» Apple's shock revenue warning causes its value to drop a staggering $446 BILLION in just two months

Apple shares plunged more than 9 percent today as Wall Street was rattled by the Silicon Valley giant's shock revenue warning. 

CEO Tim Cook sent a letter to investors on Wednesday saying the company anticipates revenue will come in below expectations, largely due to 'fewer iPhone upgrades' in China and elsewhere.

The news has wiped off approximately $73 billion from Apple's value, based on the company's value at the end of Wednesday's trading. 

Since reaching a high a of $233.47 on Oct. 3, Apple's value has dropped a staggering $446 billion, which is worth more than the size of tech behemoth Facebook, valued at roughly $382 billion.  

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Apple shares plunged over 9 percent today as Wall Street was rattled by the Silicon Valley giant's shock revenue warning. The firm said it now anticipates lower revenues of $84 billion

APPLE'S PLUNGING VALUE BY THE NUMBERS 

Apple's value has plummeted $446 billion since it reached highs in October. 

That $446 billion loss is worth more than: 

• The size of Facebook, worth $382B


• The size of Wells Fargo, worth $221B


• The size of McDonald's, worth $135B


• The size of Costco, worth $89B 


• The size of Ford, worth $30.9B

Source: CNBC 

It marks a sharp decline from just three months ago, when Apple held the title of the world's most valuable company and a $1 trillion market cap - a lofty ranking it has now lost to the likes of Microsoft, Amazon and Google parent company Alphabet. 

For the first time in more than a decade, Apple revealed that it anticipates revenue to come in below expectations. 

Apple said it now expects revenue of $84 billion in the first quarter - a five percent decline from the low-end of its previously stated range of $89 billion to $93 billion.

Cook cited economic weakness in China, which accounts for 20 percent of its global sales, as one of the main reasons for 'fewer iPhone upgrades' while Mac computer and iPad sales also fell. 

'While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,' Cook wrote in the letter to investors. 

'In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.'

Experts said today that the poor sales suggest the lure of the iPhone could be waning and the Silicon Valley company will focus on making more cash from its services including iTunes, the App Store, iCloud and Apple Pay.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said consumers are going for cheaper Samsung and Huawei handsets, which at times can cost more than 30 percent to 40 percent less than an iPhone.

CEO Tim Cook sent a letter to investors on Wednesday saying the company anticipates revenue will come in below expectations, largely due to 'fewer iPhone upgrades' in China

Ives added: 'This is Apple's darkest day during the Cook era. No one expected China to just fall off a cliff like this.'

While President Donald Trump's trade war with China isn't helping Apple and other U.S. technology companies, Ives believes Apple miscalculated by continuing to roll out high-priced phones in China, creating an opening for rivals with less costly alternatives that still worked well. 

Other analysts remained equally concerned about how the revenue slowdown bodes for Apple's future. 

'Biggest miss in years,' Jefferies analysts wrote in a note to clients. 'Apple's business in China appears to be rapidly deteriorating.' 

Oppenheimer analysts said the shock revenue warning 'raises more questions than answers,' including 'What is wrong in China?' and 'Where does the iPhone go from here?' 

Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights, said he's 'not surprised' by Apple's announcement as its suppliers had 'been telegraphing the issue for a few months.'

A woman in Beijing uses her iPhone today where sales are falling behind rivals Huawei and market leader Samsung

READ THE FULL STATEMENT FROM CEO TIM COOK  

To Apple investors:

Today we are revising our guidance for Apple's fiscal 2019 first quarter, which ended on December 29. We now expect the following:

We expect the number of shares used in computing diluted EPS to be approximately 4.77 billion.

Based on these estimates, our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance.

While it will be a number of weeks before we complete and report our final results, we wanted to get some preliminary information to you now. Our final results may differ somewhat from these preliminary estimates.

When we discussed our Q1 guidance with you about 60 days ago, we knew the first quarter would be impacted by both macroeconomic and Apple-specific factors. Based on our best estimates of how these would play out, we predicted that we would report slight revenue growth year-over-year for the quarter. As you may recall, we discussed four factors:

First, we knew the different timing of our iPhone launches would affect our year-over-year compares. Our top models, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, shipped in Q4'18 — placing the channel fill and early sales in that quarter, whereas last year iPhone X shipped in Q1'18, placing the channel fill and early sales in the December quarter. We knew this would create a difficult compare for Q1'19, and this played out broadly in line with our expectations.

Second, we knew the strong US dollar would create foreign exchange headwinds and forecasted this would reduce our revenue growth by about 200 basis points as compared to the previous year. This also played out broadly in line with our expectations.

Third, we knew we had an unprecedented number of new products to ramp during the quarter and predicted that supply constraints would gate our sales of certain products during Q1. Again, this also played out broadly in line with our expectations. Sales of Apple Watch Series 4 and iPad Pro were constrained much or all of the quarter. AirPods and MacBook Air were also constrained.

Fourth, we expected economic weakness in some emerging markets. This turned out to have a significantly greater impact than we had projected.

In addition, these and other factors resulted in fewer iPhone upgrades than we had anticipated.

These last two points have led us to reduce our revenue guidance. I'd like to go a bit deeper on both.

Emerging Market Challenges

While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China. In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.

China's economy began to slow in the second half of 2018. The government-reported GDP growth during the September quarter was the second lowest in the last 25 years. We believe the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States. As the climate of mounting uncertainty weighed on financial markets, the effects appeared to reach consumers as well, with traffic to our retail stores and our channel partners in China declining as the quarter progressed. And market data has shown that the contraction in Greater China's smartphone market has been particularly sharp.

Despite these challenges, we believe that our business in China has a bright future. The iOS developer community in China is among the most innovative, creative and vibrant in the world. Our products enjoy a strong following among customers, with a very high level of engagement and satisfaction. Our results in China include a new record for Services revenue, and our installed base of devices grew over the last year. We are proud to participate in the Chinese marketplace.

iPhone

Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline. In fact, categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, Wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year.

While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be. While macroeconomic challenges in some markets were a key contributor to this trend, we believe there are other factors broadly impacting our iPhone performance, including consumers adapting to a world with fewer carrier subsidies, US dollar strength-related price increases, and some customers taking advantage of significantly reduced pricing for iPhone battery replacements.

Many Positive Results in the December Quarter

While it's disappointing to revise our guidance, our performance in many areas showed remarkable strength in spite of these challenges.

Our installed base of active devices hit a new all-time high—growing by more than 100 million units in 12 months. There are more Apple devices being used than ever before, and it's a testament to the ongoing loyalty, satisfaction and engagement of our customers.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, revenue outside of our iPhone business grew by almost 19 percent year-over-year, including all-time record revenue from Services, Wearables and Mac. Our non-iPhone businesses have less exposure to emerging markets, and the vast majority of Services revenue is related to the size of the installed base, not current period sales.

Services generated over $10.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, growing to a new quarterly record in every geographic segment, and we are on track to achieve our goal of doubling the size of this business from 2016 to 2020.

Wearables grew by almost 50 percent year-over-year, as Apple Watch and AirPods were wildly popular among holiday shoppers; launches of MacBook Air and Mac mini powered the Mac to year-over-year revenue growth and the launch of the new iPad Pro drove iPad to year-over-year double-digit revenue growth.

We also expect to set all-time revenue records in several developed countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Korea. And, while we saw challenges in some emerging markets, others set records, including Mexico, Poland, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Finally, we also expect to report a new all-time record for Apple's earnings per share.

Looking Ahead

Our profitability and cash flow generation are strong, and we expect to exit the quarter with approximately $130 billion in net cash. As we have stated before, we plan to become net-cash neutral over time.

As we exit a challenging quarter, we are as confident as ever in the fundamental strength of our business. We manage Apple for the long term, and Apple has always used periods of adversity to re-examine our approach, to take advantage of our culture of flexibility, adaptability and creativity, and to emerge better as a result.

Most importantly, we are confident and excited about our pipeline of future products and services. Apple innovates like no other company on earth, and we are not taking our foot off the gas.

We can't change macroeconomic conditions, but we are undertaking and accelerating other initiatives to improve our results. One such initiative is making it simple to trade in a phone in our stores, finance the purchase over time, and get help transferring data from the current to the new phone. This is not only great for the environment, it is great for the customer, as their existing phone acts as a subsidy for their new phone, and it is great for developers, as it can help grow our installed base.

This is one of a number of steps we are taking to respond. We can make these adjustments because Apple's strength is in our resilience, the talent and creativity of our team, and the deeply held passion for the work we do every day.

Expectations are high for Apple because they should be. We are committed to exceeding those expectations every day.

That has always been the Apple way, and it always will be.

Tim 

'Apple's challenge is very simple - to keep its meteoric growth going it either needs to drive more iPhones at an acceptable profit level, raise prices on the same or less iPhone units, or grow new product or service categories that more than fills the lack of iPhone profit growth dollars,' Moorhead explained.

'iPhone units are likely down and I believe prices on the more premium, higher priced phones are down due to holiday discounting. 

'The company is growing its services and 'other' categories, just not enough to drive overall revenue growth. 

'I am not concerned for the company, but it's likely investors will not see the company value it was at until it can see a likely path to double-digit revenue growth,' he added.

Apple shares were briefly suspended and plunged on Wall Street after the tech giant was forced to announce poorer than expected sales

To help boost iPhone sales, Cook said Apple will expand its financing plans and build upon its recent efforts to make it easier to trade in older models at its stores.

In an interview with CNBC, Cook explained that the company will lean more on its trade-in program in an effort to get users to upgrade to newer phones. 

The trade-in program can act as a 'subsidy' for consumers, Cook said, 'because it lowers the price of the phone that you want.' 

'We're not going to sit around waiting for the macro to change,' Cook told CNBC. 

'I hope that it does, and I'm actually optimistic, but we're going to focus really deeply on the things that we can control.'     

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Main photo article Apple shares plunged more than 9 percent today as Wall Street was rattled by the Silicon Valley giant’s shock revenue warning. 
CEO Tim Cook sent a letter to investors on Wednesday saying the company anticipates revenue will come in below expectations, largely due to ‘fewer iPhone ...

It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.

Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.

Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca





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