Apple misses estimates with 74.8 million iPhones shipped last quarter

Apple shipped 74.78 million iPhones in the holiday quarter of 2015, falling short of analyst expectations of 75 million iPhones shipped.

Analysts and industry-watchers have been forecasting an iPhone sales decline for the past several weeks, pointing at signs like lowered Apple orders for critical phone components and apparently diminished demand for the current iPhone 6s.

Apple's iPhone unit shipments barely delivered growth in the December quarter, coming in at 74.78 million units, up from 74.5 million units in the same period last year. But at least it wasn't a decline.

Revenue is also still up very slightly from the same period in 2014, in the neighborhood of 1% - contrary to some naysayers predictions. That means that Apple has yet to announce a quarter where iPhone revenue fell compared with the previous year.

The big question now is whether iPhone unit shipments will decline in the current quarter, as many analysts expect could happen.

Apple is said to be working on new, smaller, lower-cost iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 5se, in an effort to reach a broader market and kickstart iPhone sales once more.

And analysts like Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster think that this is all going to keep Apple's stock flat, making it a prime time to buy - after all, the iPhone 7 is expected to launch in September, and that will cause quite a pop, he says.