After peaking at around $260 near the end of 2024, Apple's (AAPL 2.60%) stock price has entered a bear market. Even with the wide stock market indices approaching new all-time highs, shares of Apple are down 25%, making it one of the worst-performing large-cap technology stocks in 2025.
Investors are worried about tariffs, slowing revenue growth, and antitrust lawsuits that may impact the smartphone maker's future earnings power.
Is now the right time to buy the dip on Apple stock? Let's put the numbers to the test and show why Apple is a risky big tech stock to purchase today.
Image source: Getty Images.
Steady iPhone sales, failed hardware innovations
The iPhone is still a blockbuster consumer product. Over the last six months alone, the segment has generated more than $100 billion in revenue for Apple, making it the most popular smartphone in the world by revenue.
The problem for investors is the fact sales have stagnated for the last few years. Apple has been able to consistently raise the price of new iPhones, but upgrade cycles are proving longer and longer for consumers, meaning they are going more years before buying the latest device. This is a major headwind to revenue growth.
In order to expand its ecosystems of devices, Apple has made inroads into wearables like the Apple Watch and AirPods. These are successful products, but will not move the needle for Apple's $400 billion in consolidated annual revenue. To do that, Apple made its largest hardware launch since the iPhone with the Vision Pro virtual reality headset. A device that costs $3,500, the headset was supposed to be Apple's next big computing paradigm, giving its users more advanced computing tools for work and pleasure.
So far, it looks like the Vision Pro has been a flop. Estimates are that unit sales are cumulatively less than 1 million, with many purchasers reportedly stopping using the device after a trial period.
Apple remains a hardware provider tethered to iPhone sales, a product category that has matured. Expect more struggles to grow revenue on the hardware side of things in the years ahead unless Apple can come up with a breakthrough new computing device.
NASDAQ: AAPL
Key Data Points
What impact will antitrust lawsuits have on profits?
The golden goose of Apple's business in the last few years has been its software and services segment. Including App Store revenue, licensing deals, and revenue from its first-party apps such as Apple Music, services revenue has grown from $13 billion in 2012 to $102 billion over the last 12 months.
Services revenue comes with high profit margins, too. Services gross profit was $76 billion over the past 12 months, which is closing in on the $110 billion in gross profit the company gets from hardware products.
Apple has one problem: Its services cash cow is under attack.
First, the App Store monopoly on Apple devices has been broken due to a court ruling. Apple charges a 30% take rate on some transactions performed on an iPhone for application developers, and previously did not allow third-party payment methods unless users went to a mobile browser. The court ruling states that developers are allowed to now market directly to consumers to use cheaper payment methods, which could mean circumvention of Apple's payment ecosystem. Estimates vary, but App Store revenue is projected to be at least $10 billion a year in high-margin revenue for Apple.
This is not the only antitrust lawsuit putting Apple's profits at risk. There is an antitrust court case that partially covers the large payment Alphabet's Google Search makes to be the default engine on Apple devices, with estimates that the payment is more than $20 billion a year in pure profit. This could greatly impact Apple's services gross profit, as well as its consolidated bottom-line earnings.
Add both together, and it is clear that Apple's services division is under threat, and it's the only bright spot in the business over the last few years.
AAPL Net Income (TTM) data by YCharts
A downtrodden stock, but not cheap
Apple stock has gotten cheaper to start 2025, but that does not mean it is cheap. It currently has a price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of about 30.5, which is higher than some of its technology peers that are growing much faster.
Stocks with P/E ratios above 30 are typically reserved for companies with earnings growing at a quick pace, with strong future growth prospects. Apple's net income has not grown since 2022, making it one of the slowest-growing stocks with a high P/E ratio on the market today. That is a dangerous combination.
We cannot forget to talk about tariffs. Apple is at the heart of the trade war between the United States and China, where most Apple devices are assembled. In the past, Apple has been able to negotiate its way out of high tariffs put on its devices, but this time may not go so well.
High tariffs on imports to the United States would be brutal for Apple, as it is virtually stuck assembling most of its devices in China for the time being. Plus, moving to new markets or the United States comes with added expenses.
There is not much to like about Apple stock today. Its key product is seeing slowing growth, the profitable services segment is under fire, and it trades at an expensive valuation. Add tariff risk, and there is no good reason to buy the dip on Apple stock today.
