Following Apple's decline, Foxconn reports first sales dip in 25 years

Foxconn, Apple's main assembly partner, on Tuesday declared its first-ever annual sales decline since going public in 1991, something reportedly linked to weak demand from Apple prior to the arrival of the iPhone 7.

Foxconn's 2016 revenues were $136.38 billion, 2.81 percent lower than in 2015, according to Nikkei. Apple accounts for over 50 percent of Foxconn's revenue, closely linking the two companies.

While Apple tried to put a positive spin on the situation, last year it posted its first annual sales decline since 2001, something directly related to lower iPhone sales. The latter problem was regularly blamed on lukewarm demand for the iPhone 6s.

Slowing sales even led Apple to issue a pay cut for its executive team, including CEO Tim Cook, whose compensation was docked by $1.5 million for failure to meet the company's internal goals.

While the 6s introduced improvements like Live Photos, 4K video recording, and 3D Touch when it launched in Sept. 2015, it was generally seen as a modest upgrade from the iPhone 6 and a tough sell both for existing iPhone owners and people considering high-end Android phones.

Foxconn's Dec. 2016 revenues did grow 9.76 percent year-over-year however, which Nikkei tied to "relatively robust demand" for the iPhone 7 Plus. The Plus has a dual-lens camera, which not only magnifies images but enables a special Portrait mode with simulated, DSLR-like bokeh (blurred backgrounds).

Nikkei previously reported that Apple was cutting iPhone 7 orders by 10 percent for 2017, despite allegedly not being able to keep up with 7 Plus demand. That claim could be explained by Pegatron's December figures — the supplier, which assembles the standard iPhone 7, saw its revenues plummet 27.43 percent year-over-year.

33 Comments

w00master 101 comments · 18 Years

About 7 years ago

Was it courage?

zone 74 comments · 10 Years

This is so stupid... stop making it sound like the company is going out of business. A sales decline of an amazing number is still amazing! Apple make a larger profit in 1 quarter than most companies out there. Stop trying to manipulate the stock...

StrangeDays 12980 comments · 8 Years

Pretty loaded language in this story. Correlation != causation. Also from what I read elsewhere Cook wasn't "docked pay", he just didn't earn as much bonus.

sirlance99 1301 comments · 11 Years

zone said:

This is so stupid... stop making it sound like the company is going out of business. A sales decline of an amazing number is still amazing! Apple make a larger profit in 1 quarter than most companies out there. Stop trying to manipulate the stock...

Stop taking a company so seriously like it's life or death. It's just a freaking company. No need to have that much emotional attachment to it. I like what they make and use a lot of the products but don't get bent out of shape if anyone says anything good or bad about them. There are much other things in the world to care about more than a company.

sirlance99 said:

zone said:

This is so stupid... stop making it sound like the company is going out of business. A sales decline of an amazing number is still amazing! Apple make a larger profit in 1 quarter than most companies out there. Stop trying to manipulate the stock...

Stop taking a company so seriously like it's life or death. It's just a freaking company. No need to have that much emotional attachment to it. I like what they make and use a lot of the products but don't get bent out of shape if anyone says anything good or bad about them. There are much other things in the world to care about more than a company.

How do you know he's being emotional about it? How do we know you aren't? Etc. It's no lie that Apple seems to generate an unusual amount of negatively-spun articles, aka DOOM, presumably to generate more traffic across the web. It's not emotional to point this out, and note that nobody knows and Apple isn't DOOMed.