Apple said Thursday it plans to stop reporting how many iPhones, iPads and Macs it sells each quarter, in what could be a nod to flatlining growth in some of these product lines. Apple will continue to report revenue for these categories.
The move was just one of the concerning announcements Apple made Thursday. The company also said it expects sales in the all-important holiday quarter to be between $89 billion and $93 billion, skewing short of analyst estimates. At the low end of that range, Apple’s holiday sales would be little improved from the record $88.3 billion it reported a year ago.
Apple stock fell as much as 7% in after hours trading Thursday following the earnings report. If those losses hold, Apple risks losing its status as the lone trillion-dollar company.
This is the new story for Apple. These days, it’s less about how many more iPhones the company can sell from one year to the next than how much additional revenue it can squeeze out of its flagship product through price hikes and the growth of supplementary services like Apple Pay, iCloud and Apple Music subscriptions.