Technology giant Apple has seen shares slump in pre-trade, after reporting its first ever revenue drop.

It appears that the iPhone, once on a seemingly never-ending upward trajectory, is beginning to stumble; sales have been slowing for months, despite the release of the iPhone 6SE earlier this year. Apple sold just 51.2 million iPhones during the quarter, down from 61.2 million in the same quarter of 2015. Apple has also been hit hard by a slowdown in China; the Chinese market props up weaker demand in Europe and the Americas, sales in the region fell by 26 percent in the last quarter.

The company posted quarterly revenue of $50.6 billion and quarterly net income of $10.5 billion, with a gross margin of 39.4 percent compared to 40.8 percent a year ago.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, commented:

“Our team executed extremely well in the face of strong macroeconomic headwinds. We are very happy with the continued strong growth in revenue from Services, thanks to the incredible strength of the Apple ecosystem and our growing base of over one billion active devices.”

Some analysts are now questioning whether this is the end of the ‘smartphone boom’, with technology companies such as Apple, once pioneers, now facing a saturated market. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares have fallen nearly 8 percent in pre-market trading this morning.

27/04/2016