Apple warns on holiday sales, sending value below $1 trillion

Apple Inc on Thursday warned that sales for the crucial holiday quarter would likely miss Wall Street expectations, which Chief Executive Tim Cook blamed on weakness in emerging markets and foreign exchange costs.

The disappointing forecast by the world’s most valuable technology company helped send shares down as much as 7 percent, taking roughly $70 billion off Apple’s market value and forcing that value below $1 trillion. The forecast could also deepen concerns for technology companies that saw a sell-off after misses by Amazon.com Inc and Google parent Alphabet Inc.

Apple said it expects between $89 billion and $93 billion in revenue for its fiscal first quarter ending in December, with a midpoint of $91 billion coming in below Wall Street expectations of $93 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Cook in an interview with Reuters said that Apple is “seeing some macroeconomic weakness in some of the emerging markets.” He later told investors on a conference call that weak markets included Brazil, India, Russia and Turkey. Sales were flat in the fourth quarter in India, Cook said.

“Obviously, we would like to see that be a huge growth,” Cook said on the call.

Executives said they also would quit giving the number of iPhones, iPads and Mac computers, leading to a further drop in the share price, since iPhone unit sales were long the key indicator of quarterly success.