Apple’s problem? No new products

First profit fall in a decade.

Apple’s results are out, and although the company posted its first profit fall in a decade it still beat analyst expectations – boosting its share buyback programme by $50bn and making $9.5bn over the quarter.

Here’s Business Insider’s breakdown of results vs expectations:

Revenue: $43.6 billion billion versus $42.3 billion analysts’ estimate

EPS: $10.09 versus $9.98 analysts’ estimate

Gross margin: 37.5% versus 38.5% analysts’ estimate

iPhone: 37.4 million versus 36.5 million analysts’ estimate

iPad: 19.5 million versus 18.3 million analysts’ estimate

Mac: Just under 4 million million versus 4.1 million analysts’ estimate

iPod: 5.6 million versus 6.25 million analysts’ estimate

June quarter revenue: $33.5-$35.5 billion versus $38.6 billion analysts’ estimate

June quarter gross margin: 36%-37% versus 38.6% analysts’ estimate

Cash balance of $145 billion

But why the profit fall? Several theories are being tossed around. These are:

1. Apple Maps. The fiasco (bridges collapsed, a park in Ireland became an airport, normally land-bound cities ended up in the sea). The awfulness of the maps was fairly damaging to the company, particuarly as it had been given such a high-profile release.

2. John Browett’s approach to Apple Stores. Apple’s new recruit, brought in under Tim Cook, decided to save money on staff in these important showrooms. It was not a success and he was quickly fired.

3. iCloud problems. The storage feature is more expensive than Google’s version, and has created way more problems for users – audiobooks, for example, cannot be replaced if accidently deleted.

4. A lack of “buzz”. When you get down to it, Apple’s problems are mostly to do with lack of new products. It has been six months since Apple released anything new, and there is as yet no sign of the rumoured Apple “iWatch”, the super-TV set, or even the iPhone with the larger screen, that would be able to compete with Samsung’s 5in Note.

There’s an edited transcript of what Tim Cook had to say about the results here.