Pressure on Apple to expand product lineup
A security guard inside an Apple Store in San Francisco, Calif. Apple also announced a second-quarter revenue forecast of $43 billion, below Wall Street's $46.13 billion estimate. (Jan. 27, 2014) Credit: Getty Images
SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple reshaped technology and society when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone seven years ago. Now, the trendsetting company is losing ground to rivals that offer what Apple has stubbornly refused to make: smartphones with lower prices and larger screens than the iPhone.
The void in Apple's lineup is a major reason why the company's quarterly revenue may be about to fall for the first time in more than a decade, much to the dismay of investors who are worried that Apple Inc. is losing its verve and vision.
Wall Street vented its frustration after Apple reported late Monday that it sold fewer iPhones than analysts anticipated during the holiday season. Apple compounded that disappointment with a forecast raising the possibility of a slight revenue decline in the current quarter. It would be the first time that Apple's quarterly revenue has dropped from the previous year since 2003.
Apple's stock shed $44, or 7.99 percent, to close Tuesday at $506.50, marking its largest one-day drop in a year. The sell-off leaves the stock about 28 percent below its peak of $705.07, reached in September 2012 when Apple's leadership in smartphones and tablet computers was still generating robust revenue growth.
Since then, Apple has been relinquishing market share to Samsung Electronics Inc. and other companies that primarily make devices running Google Inc.'s Android operating system. Those competitors offer a broader selection of designs and prices than the iPhone and the iPad.
That trend is one of the reasons that Apple's revenue growth hasn't exceeded 6 percent in any of the past three quarters. By contrast, Apple's quarterly revenue was consistently increasing by at least 20 percent two years ago and even exceeded 70 percent during the 2011 holiday quarter.
Apple remains in stellar shape financially, coming off a $13 billion profit in its most recent quarter -- more than all but a handful of companies make in an entire year. The Cupertino, Calif., company also is sitting on nearly $159 billion in cash. But Apple's stock is unlikely to bounce back to its previous high unless the company's growth accelerates.
