Today marks the last day of trading for 2023. While AAPL saw a 54% gain for the year, the performance is put in perspective when looking at its competitors and peers. Here’s a look at the revenue declines Apple has seen and how it could turn things around in 2024.
CNBC’s Kif Leswing wrote a good summary of AAPL performance and Apple’s revenue over the last year. While a 54% gain YTD for AAPL is double what the S&P 500 did, it doesn’t look as good compared to the other big tech leaders.
Year to date, Nvidia stock increased 244%, Meta went up 184%, Tesla shares grew 130%, and Amazon saw a 78% bump. Even Microsoft stock, at a 56% increase, edged out AAPL over the last year.
While Apple beat Wall Street expectations for some of the recent earnings reports, it has seen revenue decline for the last four quarters, marking the longest negative slide in over two decades.
In some of those quarters, it did post an increase in profit despite a dip in revenue, but Apple’s trends like lower iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales have kept investors more cautious.
Part of that is due to global trends like overall smartphone sales seeing their lowest shipments in more than 10 years.
But other parts are more Apple-specific, like iPhone upgrades being more minor than in the past, no new iPad hardware launches for 2023, and more iterative upgrades for Macs.
The Apple Watch ban – even though short-lived was also a tough end to the year for Apple.
Top comment by NasDurden
Stock price is a horrible indicator of actual performance. Its all based on speculation and has almost nothing to do with a company’s actual growth, sales or profitability.
But big picture, even with four quarters of slight declines in revenue, Apple is still the most valuable company in the world at ~$3 trillion market cap and produced a massive ~$100 billion in income for its fiscal 2023.
2024 turnaround?
Along with hardware sales bouncing back, growth in Apple’s services could help the company return to revenue growth.
While Vision Pro will launch in early 2024, that’s not expected to drive much revenue in the first year. However, CNBC highlights that if the reception of Vision Pro is positive next year, it could create momentum for the future and also help “generate foot traffic and buzz for Apple’s existing products.”
What do you think? Will Apple return to revenue growth in 2024? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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