苹果突飞猛进式的增长已经告终？

Looking for Signs That Apple’s Runaway Growth Is Waning
苹果突飞猛进式的增长已经告终？

SAN FRANCISCO — Investors have long relied on Apple to deliver one crucial attribute: growth. Now they are beginning to wonder whether Apple's days as a growth stock are coming to an end.

旧金山——投资者一直指望着苹果公司(Apple)能维持一种重要的特性：增长。现在，他们开始怀疑，苹果作为成长型股票的时代是否即将结束。

With sales increases of Apple's prime product, the iPhone, projected to decelerate, and no clear new blockbuster device on the horizon, the era of the company's producing 50 or 60 percent annual revenue growth may be on the wane. When Apple reports earnings Tuesday, investors will be scouring the results for signs of how fast that downshift is happening.

苹果的首要产品iPhone的销量增长预计会放缓，而且没有明显迹象表明即将发布重磅新品。在这种情况下，该公司带来50%或60%的年收入增长的时代可能正在远去。苹果周二发布收益报告时，投资者将仔细研究其中的数据，寻找能表明它放缓程度的迹象。

Already, some investors have begun to treat Apple in a new way: as a “value” stock, a label typically attached to companies that generate predictable business results or a reliable dividend, rather than ones that deliver runaway revenue growth. Value stocks often command much lower valuations than growth stocks.

一些投资者已经开始用新的方式看待苹果了：将其当做“价值型”股票。被贴上这个标签的，通常是能带来可以预见的业务绩效或可靠红利的公司，而不是收入增长迅猛的企业。价值型股票得到的估值，通常远低于成长型股票。

“People were in love with Apple because hits like the iPod and iPhone created phenomenal growth,” said Ernesto Ramos, a fund manager at BMO Global Asset Management, which manages $18 billion and counts Apple as its largest holding. “As investors shifted their minds around the fact that it's no longer going to deliver the same sort of huge growth over the next five years, the stock became a value play.”

“人们之所以喜欢苹果是因为iPod和iPhone等大获成功的产品创造了惊人的增长，”BMO环球资产管理公司(BMO Global Asset Management)基金经理埃内斯托·拉莫斯(Ernesto Ramos)说。“当投资者因为未来五年苹果不再会带来那种巨大增长这个事实而改变主意时，苹果就变成了一支价值型股票。”BMO公司打理着180亿美元的资金，把苹果列为其持有的最大资产。

Ramos says his firm still owns Apple in some of its growth funds, but it began including the stock in value funds in mid-2013.

拉莫斯表示，他所在机构的部分成长型基金仍包含苹果的股票，但公司从2013年中期就开始把苹果的股票纳入价值型基金。

The change has important implications for Apple. While a technology-sector company like Netflix is regarded as a growth stock because its revenue grew 22.8 percent in the most recent quarter from the previous year, value stocks include aging tech giants like Cisco, Oracle and Intel. Being lumped in with those behemoths would be a perception shift for Apple.

这种转变对苹果有重要影响。像Netflix这样的科技业公司被当做成长型股票，因为它在上一季度的收入同比上升22.8%，而价值型股票则包括思科(Cisco)、甲骨文(Oracle)和英特尔(Intel)等成熟的科技巨头。对苹果来说，归入这些巨头的行列可能标志着观念的转变。

Beyond that, switching from being a growth stock to being a value stock can be a long and painful process. Growth investors need to sell a company's shares and drive down the price until it is low enough to tempt value investors, who buy stocks they think are cheap compared with the intrinsic value of the company. In the tech industry, a shift from growth to value also often signals to investors that a company is facing newer competitors with more innovative products, raising the question of how relevant the company can remain.

除此之外，从成长型股票变成价值型股票，可能是一个漫长而痛苦的过程。成长型投资者需要卖出一家公司的股票，把股价压低到足以让价值型投资者动心。后者买的，都是他们认为和其公司本身的价值相比颇为便宜的股票。在科技行业，从成长型转变为价值型，通常也是给投资者的信号，表明公司遭遇了成立时间更短、产品更有创意的竞争对手。这会引发投资者的疑问：这家公司再有多久就会出局？

“Investors don't like to see the words tech and value combined because when growth slows at a tech company, it usually means that something essentially is not working,” said Angelo Zino, a senior analyst at the research firm S&P Capital IQ.

“投资者不想看到科技企业成为价值型股票，因为一旦科技公司增长放缓，通常就意味着某种东西本质上出了问题，”标普资本智商(S&P Capital IQ)高级分析师安杰罗·齐诺(Angelo Zino)说。

A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment.

苹果公司的一位女发言人拒绝置评。

Any change would have repercussions beyond Apple because its soaring performance in recent years helped lift the broader market. If Apple shares were removed from the equation, the performance of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index in five of the last seven years would drop by about 1 percentage point, according to data from S&P Dow Jones Indices. In 2014, for instance, the index rose 13.7 percent with Apple and 12.9 percent without Apple.

任何变化影响的都不只是苹果，因为该公司近年来突飞猛进的业绩，帮助提振了整个市场。标普道琼斯指数公司(S&P Dow Jones Indices)的数据显示，如果从数据中去掉苹果的股票，标普500股指过去七年的走势中，有五年的增幅会降低大约1个百分点。比如，2014年的标普500指数算上苹果的涨幅是13.7%，不算苹果的涨幅则是12.9%。

The Apple effect is even more pronounced when technology names are isolated. For tech stocks on the S&P 500 as a group, annual gain in 2009 declined by 6 percentage points when Apple shares were not included, dropping to 56 percent from 62 percent.

单看科技企业的话，苹果的影响甚至更明显。如果把标普500涉及的科技股票作为一个整体，2009年排除苹果股票的增幅会降低6个百分点，从62%降至56%。

Apple's effect became more muted last year as the company's growth decelerated, according to the data.

从相关数据来看，去年随着苹果公司增长减速，其影响也减弱了。

Investors have turned to Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet, which owns Google — collectively referred to as the FANG stocks — for growth. Those companies are each expected to show annual revenue gains of 23 to 40 percent for the last three months of 2015, while Apple is projected to deliver 3 percent revenue growth, according to Bloomberg data.

投资者转向了Facebook、亚马逊(Amazon)、Netflix和谷歌(Google)的母公司Alphabet——它们合起来被称作“FANG股票”——把它们的股票作为成长型股票。从彭博(Bloomberg)的数据来看，这些公司在2015年最后三个月里的年收入增幅预计都在23%到40%之间，而苹果的收入增幅预计仅为3%。

Apple's shares have already been buffeted in recent months because of worries about the slowing economy in China, which the company counts as one of its largest markets. Half a dozen companies that provide parts for the iPhone also blamed weak demand from Apple for lower-than-expected earnings, causing worries about the company's sales trajectory.

苹果视中国为其最大的市场之一。最近几个月，因为中国经济日渐放缓引发担忧，苹果的股票已经受到了冲击。六家为iPhone供应部件的公司称，苹果需求疲软是它们收益低于预期的原因。这引发了对该公司销量发展趋势的担忧。

In total, Apple shares fell 4.7 percent in 2015. So far this year, they are down 3.7 percent, while the S&P 500 is down 6.7 percent. Alphabet is now within spitting distance of overtaking Apple as the world's biggest company by market capitalization.

2015年，苹果股价总计下跌4.7%。今年，苹果股价目前已下跌3.7%，而标普500则下跌了6.7%。Alphabet现在离超过苹果，成为全球市值最高的公司只有一步之遥。

“If you wanted to outperform the market, the FANG stocks did better,” said Jonathan Krinsky, an analyst at the research and trading firm MKM Partners, though he added that Apple remained a must-watch stock because it composed such a large part of many stock indexes.

“要想跑赢市场，FANG股票表现得更好，”研究和贸易公司MKM Partners的分析师乔纳森·克林斯基(Jonathan Krinsky)说。不过他接着表示，苹果依然是一支必须要关注的股票，因为它在很多股票指数中都占据了很大的份额。

Investors may still someday reanoint Apple as a growth stock, especially if the company can create a best-selling new product that drives up its sales rate. Wall Street analysts cite Microsoft as an example of a business that lost steam and then made the adjustments necessary to deliver strong revenue growth again.

投资者依然可能在某一天重新把苹果当做成长型股票，特别是如果该公司能够创造出一款畅销新品，提高销售的话。华尔街上的分析师举出了微软(Microsoft)的例子。作为一家企业，微软在失去动力后进行了必要的调整，再次实现了强劲的收入增长。

And Apple may have some product aces up its sleeve. The company entered wearable computing last year with the Apple Watch. Apple is also trying to become a dominant software platform in the auto industry and is working on a car. (An executive who was overseeing the car project, Steve Zadesky, is leaving the company for personal reasons, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked to remain anonymous because the details are private. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported on the departure.)

而且苹果可能会有一些新的王牌产品出现。去年，该公司凭借Apple Watch进入可穿戴计算设备领域。苹果目前还试图成为汽车行业的主导性软件平台，且正在研究汽车。（据一名了解情况的人士透露，负责汽车项目的高管史蒂夫·扎德斯基[Steve Zadesky]即将因个人原因离开苹果。因为细节比较私密，这名人士要求匿名。《华尔街日报》[The Wall Street Journal]早前报道过这个离职消息。）

Apple has been reclassified as a value stock before. FTSE Russell, which makes several closely followed stock indexes, found in 2013 that Apple no longer met its criteria to be treated purely as a growth stock. Some of the company's enormous market capitalization was reallocated to the Russell Value Index, as well as being in the Russell Growth Index. A year later, when the company's sales had risen strongly with the introduction of the iPhone 6, FTSE Russell placed Apple solely back in the growth index.

苹果以前有过被重新归类为价值型股票的历史。2013年，被密切关注的几大股票指数的制定者富时罗素(FTSE Russell)发现，苹果不再满足被纯粹当做成长型股票的条件。该公司巨大的市值中，部分被重新划分给了罗素价值类指数(Russell Value Index)，部分被纳入了罗素成长类指数(Russell Growth Index)。一年后，iPhone 6推出，苹果公司的销量强势上涨，富时罗素又把苹果完全放回了成长类指数。