The crowd of Apple doomsayers grew louder today with a new note from analysts at Oppenheimer claiming Apple is projected to go through a long decline for the next ten years.
[contextly_auto_sidebar] Oppenheimer Andrew Uerkwitz and his team wrote a brutal note about Apple, calling out the company’s “strategic issues” that hold it back from truly innovating.
“We believe Apple lacks the courage to lead the next generation of innovation (AI, cloud-based services, messaging); instead will become more reliant than ever on the iPhone,” Uerkwitz writes in the note obtained by Business Insider. “We believe Apple is about to embark on a decade-long malaise. The risks to the company have never been greater.”
Doom and Gloom
Oppenheimer isn’t the first investment firm to criticize Apple’s strategy. A few days ago UBS analyst Steve Milunovich told BI that his firm doesn’t think Apple has figured out what the next big thing will be.
Apple reported declining annual revenues this year for the first time since 2001. The company may grow a bit in 2017 thanks to pent up demand for the tenth-anniversary iPhone. After that though, analysts are predicting iPhone sales will peak in 2018.
“The company lacks the ability to raise prices across its iPhones, iPads and Mac products,” which hurts its growth, according to Oppenheimer. The firm also predicts Apple’s role as a hardware creator first, and software provider second, could lead to more struggles.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
13 responses to “Doom boom: Apple faces ‘decade-long malaise’”
I sure hope not, not with how invested in their damn ecosystem I am…
After 5 years I decided to leave my previous job and it changed my life… I started doing a job from comfort of my house, for this company I found on-line, for several hours /a day, and my income now is much bigger then it was on my old job… My payment for last month was for 9 thousand dollars… Superb thing about this is that i have more time to spend with my family… TINY.PL/g9s36
One yr have passed since I decided to abandon my last job and i couldn’t be happier now… I started to work at home, for this company I discovered online, few hrs daily, and I earn much more than i did on my last job… My check for last month was for 9000 dollars… Superb thing about this is that now i have more free time with my family… TINY.PL/g9s36
We hear the same BS every year, usually in the middle of an iPhone production cycle, or some other quiet period. How any analyst can make a 10 year prediction with any degree of certainty is completely beyond me. They said Apple was doomed so many times before, you would think they would just shut up, but saying anything controversial or inaccurate for attention is so acceptable today, it doesn’t matter what anyone says. It is all about clicks, and being as outrageous as you can about everything and anything in order to get eyeballs. It waters down the value of quality information by throwing more trash onto the already over saturated news heap.
Have you ever considered that the talk of “Apple is doomed if they don’t do this!” might be helping Apple? As long as they have detractors pointing out what could go wrong, Apple can make course corrections and remain successful. If people just stopped Apple could blindly drive off a cliff while thinking that everything is fine. A child is not doomed if you’re constantly teaching it how to behave, you’re just making sure it doesn’t hurt itself.
Wow….you’re all over the place preaching your narrative aren’t you.
So far I’ve proven that Apple has “out Innovated” the competition and that this broken narrative of innovation is a fallacy created by the uninformed.
I hate to agree but I, reluctantly, am beginning to, ahem, agree. It’s only since I started introducing IOT devices to my house that the penny began to drop that this is going to be a huge deal. Worse, when I look to see who is offering the most useful integrations Apple is nowhere to be found. Yes they’ve got HomeKit but it works with virtually nothing and you need to have a device in your hand to get anything done.
I’ve been a very loyal Apple customer since the 90’s and for the first time I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to have to leave their ecosystem, at least in part, pretty soon; only because they’re not even in the game I need them to be in. I’ll probably end up with Google Home or an Amazon Eco. And even if they get in this game I shudder to think how awful “iHome” will turn out to be if they’re planning on building it around Siri.
Yes I’ll stay with OSX and IOS, for now, but Apple is playing a dangerous game leaving such a huge opening for the competitors to fill. Furthermore WHAT ABOUT THE COMPUTERS??? Here’s the elephant in the room. I’ve two older iMacs and I’m in the market for at least one new desktop and Apple haven’t anything to sell me. Yes they have the decrepit Apple Pro and a load of, what should be, End Of Life iMacs but there’s no way I’m coughing up for any of these. If they don’t put some new, and decent, stuff on the shelves soon I’ll have to consider either switching or building a Hackintosh.
I hate to say it, he seems a decent guy and all that, but Tim Cook looks to be nothing more than hack who is considerably talented at delivering huge profits while flogging a, nearly, dead horse. When a customer as invested in the Apple brand as I am, and who is practically begging for product to buy, can’t justify spending on Apple hardware that should be considered a very auspicious sign.
“I shudder to think how awful “iHome” will turn out to be if they’re planning on building it around Siri.”
“Siri, turn on the living room lights.”
“Searching the web for ‘Turn on the living room lights’…”
Actually….that’s the answer I get from Google Now when I ask what movies are playing in the area.
I think it’s good that Apple gets some pressure to step it up. We’re at a time of tech maturity in many areas that once provided great innovation and profits. Many companies are struggling with coming up with the next big thing, hoping something catches on. At a minimum though, Apple should be providing complete hardware solutions across its computer line and that may be the most worrying to me. That can equate to direct sales losses.
If the annalists are predicting Apple’s Doom, I’m feeling pretty comfortable about Apple’s future.
None of these people saw the tablet revolution coming and they were all betting and berating Apple for not coming out with a Netbook (meanwhile, Apple was quietly making a tablet that everybody would want). Same with the iPod and the iPhone.
Too bad these idiots can’t be sued for defamation. I think these people are allowed to get away with an awful lot of BS and lies. You’d figure it could damage a company by telling outright lies. There’s no way any person can truthfully say a company is going to be in a slump for ten years. That’s just one person’s opinion and it’s certainly not based on fact.
Analysts as usual are waiting for the next big thing while forgetting about Apple’s huge and growing active installed base of close to 1 Billion active iOS devices owned by the most lucrative demographic in the world while Google only has 1.4 billion active Android devices and AOSP forked Android sits at about 400m.
The vast majority of Android devices are cheap and nasty plastic 200 dollar devices that are thrown away at a far faster rate than Apple’s expensive 650 dollar slabs of machined aluminium.
Analysts should be more worried about almost every Android manufacturer in the world who are all barely holding onto existence with their fingernails, haemorrhaging hundreds of millions and even Billions of dollars every year.
– Sony: 2.1 Billion loss and considering to exit the mobile phone business.
– Samsung: 6 straight quarters of declining profit. 67% plunge in profits last quarter of 2015, 96% plunge in profits in Q3 2016 to a pathetic 87.8m.
– LG: 36M loss in Q4 2015, 50% decline in mobile profits in Q3 2016 to 400m
– HTC: 101M Loss In Q4 2015, Its third successive quarter In the red to that point, Q2 2016 132m loss, Q3 2016 63m operating loss
– Lenovo/Motorola: 292 million loss in Q2 2015. Moto losses multiple Billions to date.
The small drop in iPhone sales in the last 2 quarters merely represents the model “S” year seasonal lull before the launch of the iPhone 7. iPhone sales have been increasing each and every year since launch: iPhone Sales:
2007 = 3.8M
2008 = 13.7M
2009 = 25.1M
2010 = 47.5M
2011 = 93.1M
2012 = 135.8M
2013 = 153.4M
2014 = 192.6M
2015 = 231.3M
Apple will no doubt see a few less iPhone sales over all 2016 than the blockbuster 2015, but with analysts projecting sales of 74m for Q4, Apple will probably see sales for 2016 of around 221m. That would be down a mere 4% compared to the gigantic 2015, but up a large 15% compared to 2015.
Apple will be fine.