Analysts aren't making this up. Apple's financials have been stagnant because they can't get people excited about new devices. It's not unique to Apple either, new smartphones just aren't that interesting anymore.
Our household has a long tail of Apple products, that get passed down, or put to different uses.
This is hugely important for Apple business strategy. Not only does it please the customer to have well made, long lasting hardware, it cements the “ecosystem” into a much more embedded place in the lives of users.
Apple has competive advantages and disadvantages, but it absolutely must maintain customer loyalty. To even break out service revenue is a little uniformative, because the feedback loops they get from having a tightly integrated system are huge.
Apple has struggled with the online platform aspect of its business, compared to Google, Amazon, etc...but even if it’s not a market leader, if they can get a “good enough “ product that prevents users from leaving the ecosystem that is huge.
A paradigm example is Apple Maps which was a source of embarrassment for a while. Going up against Google in this space seems insane.
But they finally got it good enough that my guess is vast majority of iPhone users use Apple Maps, not Google. Ideally, Apple wants to prevent as many people as possible from having to get a google account as they can!
It may be peak iPhone nonetheless, which is why extending device life is strategic.
Their services income is growing year over year.
They have multiple line of adjunct devices that are growing year over year.
I said nothing about software sales. New services mean delivering software. The more clients you can address, the better.
Do a few google searches to confirm these statements. Everything I’ve said here is fact.
I’m sorry this doesn’t make sense to you.