Apple reported its first fall in sales in 13 years on Tuesday. Sales were down around $8bn (\u00a35.5bn) compared with this time last year and its shares have fallen nearly 20% in the last 12 months.<\/p>\n
While it’s fair to say the firm is still a long way from the breadline – it has around $200bn in offshore reserves alone – many see the news as a sign that the winning formula it has upheld for so long is no longer enough.<\/p>\n
So where next for the billion dollar business? The BBC asked the experts.<\/p>\n
The industry analyst<\/strong><\/p>\n Virtual reality, which chief executive Tim Cook has already declared an area of great potential, and the much-rumoured Apple car could both prove extremely lucrative for the tech giant, he believes.<\/p>\n He also thinks Apple could set its sights on the potentially lucrative Indian market.<\/p>\n “Although it is a tough challenge for Apple to sell full price iPhones in India, the sheer scale of the population and potential for smartphone adoption cannot be ignored,” he said.<\/p>\n Failing that, Apple could take on the likes of Amazon and Sky as a major content provider, Mr Wood argued.<\/p>\n “Apple has a huge cash pile that would allow it to easily purchase the rights to major sporting events or other hot content areas,” he said.<\/p>\n “Given its ability to distribute content to the huge installed base of affluent Apple device owners, this could be a new direction for the company.”<\/p>\n Chief Policy Adviser Martin Baxter from the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment also believes cars are a smart move for the firm, but not necessarily the autonomous type.<\/p>\n “With air quality concerns in the news, clearly electric vehicles have the potential to reduce harmful emissions – if we have renewable energy to generate the electricity,” he said.<\/p>\n “Apple has a big role to play in both the vehicle, and energy harvesting, making the process more efficient. It would be a completely new market for them and would also address those challenges.”<\/p>\n Liam, Apple’s iPhone recycling robot, is all very well, but Mr Baxter wants to see the firm go further.<\/p>\n “They could do more on repairability,” he said.<\/p>\n “It’s great that they can recover material but what we want is more product durability.”<\/p>\n That might not help boost sales however.<\/p>\n The technology journalist<\/p>\n Cam Bunton, editor of 9to5Mac, believes Apple needs to come out with its next landscape-changing product.<\/p>\n “As a tech enthusiast Apple is pretty boring,” says Mr Bunton.<\/p>\n “They release stuff once or twice a year, it’s usually similar to what they’ve done already. It’s a good strategy and makes them lots of money though,” he says.<\/p>\n “That said, I think the iPhone SE is an important device for those who maybe want all the performance and spec of an iPhone but haven’t been able to afford one.”<\/p>\n Mr Bunton also called for more openness from the notoriously secretive company – but conceded that perhaps that’s part of its appeal.<\/p>\n “I would like them to share more – stop pretending developing tech is a massive secret that nobody else is doing.<\/p>\n “But I guess that’s what has made them successful – the secrecy builds up excitement so when they release something it sounds brand new,” he said.<\/p>\n The accountant<\/strong><\/p>\n Graham Seddon, partner and technology sector specialist at accountancy firm Menzies, also thinks the iPhone is entering its twilight years.<\/p>\n “Even the greatest product, from the greatest brand, has a lifecycle that will end,” he said.<\/p>\n “The macroeconomic factors of a strong US dollar and slowing growth in China have had an impact, alongside the ongoing competition in the smartphone market as other manufacturers have played catch-up.<\/p>\n “For the moment, Apple’s Tim Cook seems to be adamant that the dip in performance is merely a ‘pause’ in growth and he seems to be in denial that global demand for iPhones could at last be waning.<\/p>\n “We will have to wait and see if products like the Apple Watch, iPad or even the ‘Apple Car’ can help to drive up revenues once again.”<\/p>\n “Take the base that you’ve got and keep innovating,” says Professor Les Carr from the University of Southampton.<\/p>\n “I don’t join in the clamour for Apple having to deliver another landmark product such as iPhone.<\/p>\n “What Apple do is bring out technology that provides a certain level of innovation then incrementally improve it. I think they aren’t one for releasing a million products onto the market and seeing which one flies.”<\/p>\n Prof Carr thinks there is yet more potential in the Apple Watch, and also believes its foray into health and wellbeing with its Apple Health tracking service will prove successful.<\/p>\n “Personal health is going to be a huge market and Apple has the product to leverage that.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apple reported its first fall in sales in 13 years on Tuesday. Sales were down around $8bn (\u00a35.5bn) compared with this time last year and its shares have fallen nearly 20% in the last 12 months. While it’s fair to say the firm is still a long way from the breadline – it has around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":209071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/209071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}