Apple has reported a 15% drop in its sales which translates to the company's second consecutive quarter of falling iPhone sales. However, Apple was able to sell 40.4 million units, which is slightly higher than their projected sale of 40.02 million units sold in its third quarter.

The first drop of the iPhone sales was first reported in the second quarter. And according to Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, it expects that their sales will fall again in the fourth quarter to between $45.5 billion to $47.5 billion.

The iPhone sales constitute two-thirds of the Apple's sales and as well as its profits with the Greater China (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) accounting for a quarter of Apple's sales. Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer attributes the 33% plunge in sales in this Greater Chinese market shows clear signs of economic slowdown in China and that Apple has to work through solving these issues.

With the stronger dollar also playing a part in this sales drop, Apple shares which have also fallen to almost 20% last year and rose to over 7% in after-hours trading. Analysts claim that Apple's performance wasn't after all as bad as they have expected.

Maestri claims that the second quarter of last year's iPhone 6 with sales surge of 35% made their performance seem worse as it actually was. He further claims that its firm's App Store, Apple Pay, iCloud and other services played a role in making their performance better as compared to projections.

These services account for $6 billion in revenue which translates to 18.9% of their company's profit, ranking second to iPhone sales. These services on the other hand serve as a bright spot in this time of iPhone sale drop crisis, as Apple can make more money from its existing Apple subscribes using these schemes.  

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