Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, one of the better-known analysts who covers Apple, has joined the ranks of his colleagues and competitors who are predicting a decline in iPhone sales when CEO Tim Cook reports his December quarterly earnings on January 26.
Of the seven most recent analyst reports that Business Insider has viewed, all of them now predict an upcoming slump in the number of iPhone units sold. One group, Pacific Crest, all but accused Apple of shading the truth about its sales prospects in a previous earnings call, in a note that said, "Management's confidence now looks highly likely to be misplaced, which suggests that it was either ignorant of the challenges it faced or deliberately overstating underlying trends."
Apple has never before reported a decline in iPhone sales. Although the stock has already declined 26% over the last few months, analysts have not yet booked-in an actual reported decline to their models. And the tech industry generally has ne ...
