Apple Has Admitted A Harsh Reality That May Negatively Affect Its Business; The U.S. Smartphone Market Has Been In A Decline For A While

wccftech.com:

Apple’s Q3 2023 earnings call reported that its iPhone division generated $39.67 billion for the three-month period, but that amount was 2 percent lower compared to the same quarter a year ago. While that is still an abnormally large chunk of change, it represents a trend that even the technology giant has noticed and has no choice but to admit; the U.S. smartphone market has been in decline, and it has been this way for a while. Naturally, this will prompt the firm to reduce its dependency on its biggest cash cow, but that is easier said than done.

For those unaware, the U.S. smartphone market is Apple’s main focus because the majority of the revenue for the company comes from this region. With this realization, the company will likely execute a change in strategy that involves either improving its other revenue-generating segments or expanding heavily in other markets other than the U.S. In Mark Gurman’s ‘Power On’ newsletter, the Bloomberg reporter states that the decline of the U.S. smartphone market presents a challenge for the iPhone 15 series, which is said to arrive with multiple exclusive features, particularly the ‘Pro’ models.

“After reporting sluggish iPhone sales on Thursday, sending Apple stock sliding, the company disclosed that “the smartphone market has been in a decline for the last couple of quarters in the United States.”

That presents a challenge for the next iPhone, which promises to be the biggest update to the device in three years. When Apple rolls out major phone overhauls — like it did with the iPhone 6 in 2014, iPhone X in 2017 and iPhone 12 in 2020 — the new features usually sell themselves. In those earlier examples, the company kicked off major upgrade cycles by offering bigger screens,