Apple could post first quarterly profit decline in a decade

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday after the market closes, and while the company is expected to report its biggest fiscal second-quarter sales yet, analysts also expect Apple to post its first decline in quarterly profit in a decade. Wall Street expects the company to report sales of around 35 million iPhones and 17 million iPads, and while Apple's size and scale are the envy of every tech company, investors have given the stock a beating of late, with the company's shares dropping 44 percent since their September 2012 high, losing around $280 billion in market value along the way. As Wired notes, investors are concerned about several things, including whether Apple will increase its dividend, how it will spend its billions in cash, whether it can sustain profit margins and, perhaps most importantly, where the next stage of innovation will come from for the company. As Reuters notes, the uncertainty around when Apple will release its next iPhone is causing suppliers to reduce their reliance on Apple, while at the same time expectations for the company are still sky high. "'Apple can do no wrong' can only work until Apple does wrong," Roger Kay, president of researcher and consultancy Endpoint Technologies Associates, told Reuters. "It's like the rubber band effect. The more you stretch it, the more snap you get coming back." Article