By Jason Snell

January 26, 2016 8:53 AM PT

Apple results: Congratulations, I’m sorry

Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

Apple’s holiday-quarter earnings will be released today, and if you’re the kind of person who likes to complain when Apple releases record earnings and then is punished in the stock market, rev up your complaint engines because today is going to be a doozy.

I discussed this a bit on yesterday’s episode of Upgrade, but Dan Frommer makes the same point in this piece at Quartz:

When Apple reports its first-quarter results today… it will likely report its highest ever quarterly sales and profit…. Investors will immediately skip past these figures for a more important number: Apple’s revenue projection for the current March quarter. After an amazing period of growth, Apple is now expected to forecast its first year-over-year sales decline in 13 years.

The charts and press releases and filings will almost certainly describe Apple’s biggest quarter ever. Shiny! But for investors who are focused on growth and the future, Apple’s guidance for the next quarter will tell all. And if it even remotely suggests a slowdown when compared to the first calendar quarter of 2015, you will hear the screams.

As always, you can join us here for coverage of the earnings results later today, and follow @sixcolorsevent for blow-by-blow coverage of Apple executives’ phone call with analysts starting at 2 Pacific, 5 Eastern.

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