There are grave portents of the end of the world for the Apple Cargo cult – the Sky has turned black, clouds did pour forth Late, a four headed dog was birthed by a Chicago woman and people did not buy as many iPhones for Christmas.
For a while now, the Tame Apple Press has been talking up Apple's deals with the Chinese as a way that Apple would ride out an expected downturn in iPhone sales. However not only are saner heads pointing out that Apple is doomed in China, it seems that the company's core base, the US, is losing interest in the cargo cult.
The forecast for the March quarter, when Apple is expected to have reaped the fruits of that long-awaited deal, raised questions of whether investors were stupid enough to ignore warnings from TechEye, and instead bought into the New York Time's vision of a China fit for Apple fanboys.
Shipments to China Mobile were much lower than almost anybody expected and the US market is saturated. In short Jobs' Mob has nowhere to go.
The world's most valuable technology company sold a record 51 million iPhones in the quarter. This is not bad but shy of the 55 million analysts had expected.
The company on Monday recorded sales of $57.6 billion in its December or fiscal first quarter, versus expectations for about $57.5 billion. Net profit was flat from a year earlier at $13.1 billion, or $14.50 a share.
In other words, Apple's days of growth are over and it has no new products or ideas that can save it. This means that its share price will fall.
Of course Apple's reality distortion field is still working. Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer told analysts on a conference call the March quarter revenue outlook was all because of a strong US dollar and more balanced levels of demand and supply for iPhones at the start of 2014 than a year earlier, when demand outstripped available inventory.