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Comment by qwerty456127 | Hacker News Reader

> Apple Inc. shares had their worst day since 2014 amid concerns that growth in its powerhouse product, the iPhone, is slowing. In the fiscal fourth quarter, Apple said iPhone unit sales barely grew from a year earlier

Why do sales always need to grow, why sustaining is not enough?

Also wouldn't it be a good idea to change the focus product periodically? I.e. we've sold so much iPhones that everybody who ever wanted one has one already, let's focus on making MacBooks great again so more people would consider getting one or upgrading their old one, then once some time has passed and everybody has a new Mac let's start selling new iPhones we were developing during this time that is so much better thst everybody is willing to upgrade again... IMHO inflating sales growth by releasing a new not-much-better model of the same product every year or two is hardly a healthy sustainable practice.

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Our financial system is entirely predicated on the assumption of perpetual growth. It’s likely to bite us in the end if we can’t get ahold of the externalities and find a way to build sustainable systems, but unfortunately we don’t have the scaffolding in place for that and Apple is just another cog in the existing system.

If you're an investor, or an employee who's compensation is largely allocated to stock shares, then you depend on perpetual share price appreciation, either through sales growth or other means.

I agree that growth is often overemphasized.

But one point to consider is the population expands by approximately 2% per year. (Highly variable depending on region, of course.)

If growth in sales isn’t at least 2% per year, that implies a smaller percentage of the population is buying their products than have previously.

In other words, sales remaining flat can be interpreted as a relative decrease in sales.

> Why do sales always need to grow, why sustaining is not enough?

I wonder this often myself too. It's unorthodox, but I wish more companies focused on staying sustainable rather than trying to grow continuously (or making growth the only goal of the company). A good book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Small-Giants-Companies-Instead-10th-A...

People hold stock because they think it will be worth more in the future. Sustaining would be enough if everyone else is shrinking, but not if there is anywhere else that is growing.

They don't "have to" always grow, but stock prices are effectively predictions on future growth. When the prediction changes you see that reflected immediately in the stock price. Of course predictions change all the time and so do stock prices. If your prediction turns out to be more accurate than other predictions you win (assuming you invested some money based on your prediction).

"Why do sales always need to grow, why sustaining is not enough?"

They don't, but then the stock price goes down.

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