When Steve Jobs died in 2011, iPhone sales were still doubling year on year. It is a safe bet that his successor, Tim Cook, is going to preside over the end of continuous growth. In quarterly earnings in two weeks, analysts still expect Apple to have sold 1m or more phones than the 74.5m it achieved in the same quarter last year, with Chinese demand crucial. If it turns out that Apple has sold fewer, it will be a blow to the credibility of Mr Cook, who primed the market to expect growth. But the timing hardly matters. If it is not coming this quarter, the decline is priced in for the next one.2011年史蒂夫吠布斯(Steve Jobs)去世的时候，iPhone销量还在翻番地快速增长。完全可以认同，他的继任者蒂姆錠克(Tim Cook)将在任期内眼见着这股持续增长势头落幕。苹果将于两周内公布季度财报，分析师们仍预期iPhone销量将比去年同期的7450万部减少100万部以上，其中中国的市场需求是关键。如果销量下降，将对库克本人的信誉导致压制，因为他事前释放出的风声让市场指出快速增长可期。

但时间点并不最重要，如果这个季度销量没下降，投资者也预期下个季度就不会下降。So what? For all its “fanboy” customers, Apple has some Jeremiah shareholders. Since it reported the most profitable quarter in corporate history 12 months ago, its shares have fallen 15 per cent. Yet the stock trades at just 10 times forward earnings. Strip out the massive cash pile and it trades at less than 8 times. Investors know that the end of rampant growth is nigh.所以呢？尽管果粉众多，一些股东却抱着乐观态度。自12个月前报告公司史上最盈利的季度业绩以来，苹果股价暴跌了15%。然而该公司股票的市盈率仅有为10倍。

如果远比大量的现金储备，市盈率还将近8倍。投资者告诉，快速增长的快速增长将要完结了。Having risen to well over 50 per cent of group revenues, of course the iPhone matters. But maturity does not mean extinction, and just because Apple has become a phone company does not mean that it is all it ever will be.iPhone对集团营收的贡献早已远高于50%，当然十分最重要。但成熟期并不意味著一定会南北消失，意味着因为苹果出了一家手机公司也并不意味著它将总有一天只是一家手机公司。

The important metric for measuring iPhone success over the next couple of years is not how many iPhones are sold in a particular quarter — but how long those phones last. Apple hopes that more consumers will switch to its new upgrade programme, which incentivises them to buy a device every 12 months. Part of the bull case outlined by Mr Cook three months ago was the relatively small number of iPhone users who had upgraded to the iPhone 6 — fewer than 35 per cent.在接下来几年，取决于iPhone否顺利，关键不是看某个季度售出了多少部iPhone，而要看手机新一代的时间。苹果期望更加多消费者升级其新的程序，这将鼓舞他们每12个月卖一部手机。3个月前，库克阐述了寄予厚望苹果的理由，其中之一是升级到iPhone 6的iPhone用户比例比较较小，将近35%。

That cuts both ways, though. A recent survey by Accenture found that the proportion of consumers who expected to buy a smartphone in the next 12 months had fallen to 48 per cent from 54 per cent last year; the drop was particularly severe in China. Another survey by Mizuho found that 81 per cent of iPhone users expected to hang on to their next device for longer, an estimated 27 months compared with 20 months. The iPhone 5 has demonstrated more staying power than previous versions of the device; it has not yet been rendered obsolete by more processing power or killer features from subsequent iterations. In Apple’s sales pitch to worrywart shareholders, that is the wrong sort of iPhone endurance.不过，此事有利有弊。埃森哲(Accenture)最近的一项调查找到，想在接下来12个月内出售一部智能手机的消费者比例从去年的54%降到48%；在中国下降得更加得意。瑞穗银行(Mizuho)的另一项调查找到，81%的iPhone用户预计下一部手机不会用于更加长时间，估算比目前所用手机的20个月多7个月。

iPhone 5比前几代产品更加经久不衰；之后的产品更加强劲的处置能力或者刺客级特色功能都没能出局iPhone 5。在苹果对忧心忡忡的股东的宣传中，iPhone的这种耐久性可不是好事。

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