Tim Cook on the declining smartphone market: 'This too shall pass'

Apple reported its second quarter earnings on Tuesday evening and for the first time ever, iPhone sales declined from the year-ago quarter.

During Q2, Apple sold 51.2 million iPhones, down about 16.3% from the 61.2 million it sold during the second quarter of 2015.

When asked about the smartphone market on the call, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again blamed the global economy.

"The smartphone market as you know is currently not growing, however my view of that is it's an overhang of the macroeconomic environment in many places in the world and we're very optimistic that this too shall pass," Cook said.

iPhone sales were expected to decline, and Apple did beat Wall Street expectations of 50.7 million.

Cook noted that the company looks at potential iPhone upgrade sales from a few areas, and that upgrades "compare favorably" to the iPhone 5S but lower on the iPhone 6. "All of us know that the iPhone 6 cycle was an extraordinary cycle that accelerated upgrade," Cook said.

He also noted that more people than ever switched over to the iPhone from other devices in the past 6 months.