Apple Cuts Guidance for Latest Quarter By Investing.com - Investing.com

Investing.com - Apple (NASDAQ:) stunned investors after the market Wednesday, lowering guidance for the quarter just completed.

For its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 29, the tech giant now expects revenue of about $84 million. That’s well below analysts’ consensus estimates of $91.36 billion.

Apple originally forecast a revenue of between $89 billion and $93 billion.

The stock fell 7.5% after hours and should pull down futures and the at the Wall Street open.

Apple blamed lower-than-anticipated iPhone revenue and upgrades, something the sell side has been concerned about lately, and weakness in emerging markets.

A slew of brokerages had reduced their first-quarter production estimates for iPhones after several component makers forecast weaker-than-expected sales, leading some market watchers to call the peak for iPhones in several key markets.

"While Greater China and other emerging markets accounted for the vast majority of the year-over-year iPhone revenue decline, in some developed markets, iPhone upgrades also were not as strong as we thought they would be," CEO Tim Cook said in the letter to investors.

"(M)ost of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad," Cook said.

Apple predicts quarterly gross margin of 38% and operating expenses of $8.7 billion.

-- Reuters contributed to this report.

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