Apple May Report Decline in iPhone Sales but It's Not a Reason to Freak Out
Apple will report its quarterly earnings today.
— -- When Apple releases its second-quarter financial results today, analysts expect the company will report a dip in iPhone sales, marking the first time the company's flagship product has been in decline.
"This has been anticipated for three months now," Gene Munster, managing director and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, told ABC News.
Munster predicted sales will be "down 15 percent year-over-year and the reason is nothing is wrong with the iPhone.”
The blockbuster iPhone 6 releases in 2014 and 2015, which included the huge Chinese market, helped fuel Apple's record iPhone sales, according to previous earnings reports.
"People typically hold their phones for a couple years so they jumped and bought their phones maybe earlier and it pulled forward the demand," Munster said.
Even Apple has warned of a difficult quarter. During the earnings call for the first fiscal quarter of 2016, which ended Dec. 26, Apple reported sales of 74.8 million iPhones, up less than 1 percent from the same time one year ago.
Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed to weakening currencies worldwide as one of the obstacles the company was up against this quarter.
While the likely decline may be a headline, analyst Munster said it's not a reason to worry for Apple. He predicts iPhone sales will once again increase by the end of this year, following the likely release of a new product in September.