Apple iPhone sales keep slowing down, holiday season might turn things around

Cupertino just shared its fiscal results for the three months ending in September 2016 and they are less than ideal. Now, don’t get us wrong, Apple is still hugely profitable, but this marks the third consecutive quarter of declining revenues. The company reeled in $46.9 billion over the last three months, which is down 9% year over year.

This is noticeable across all key product sales. The shipped devices are as follows - 45.5 million iPhones, 9.3 million iPads and 4.9 Macs. Compared to Q3 2015, that constitutes a 5.2% decline for iPhones, 6% for iPads and 14% for Macs. The latter is particularly shocking at first sight, but it is worth noting that Apple hasn’t really updated its PC lineup lately and things are due for a change come tomorrow's event.

To be fair, that likely means a strong holiday sales season in the computer division and since the iPhone 7 hasn't been on the market for too long as well, we can expect to see an increase in its numbers as well. But even if the US giant surpasses expectations over the next three months, the question still remains whether it will be enough to offset the overall stagnant 2016 performance. If not, this might mark the end of a historical streak, as the first year since 2001 in which Apple hasn't shown a growth in revenue.

Just to reiterate and round things up, Apple is definitely in no financial crisis, far from it. It is simply getting richer at a bit slower pace now. Besides the aforementioned trio of most popular product divisions, there are also a few more that fall under the "other products" category. These include the Beats hardware and the iPod, both of which are understandably shrinking in sales.

There is also the Apple Watch, which according to the same report has a whopping 21% year-over-year decrease in sales. It, however, is pretty much the same boat time-wise as the iPhone 7 and upcoming MacBooks, with the new models pretty fresh on the market. If everything goes as planned, the shiny second generation Apple Watch might be on many people's holiday shopping list as well, which should ensure better performance for the wearable by the end of the calendar year.

Last, but not least, there is the matter of Apple's services business, which despite the slow product sales is still growing in revenue. With a total revenue of $6.3 billion, platforms like the iTunes Store and Apple Music marked a 23.5% increase year over year.

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