Huge year will be hard to top

Now that Apple has reported results for its fiscal third quarter, the company is in the home stretch of a fiscal year that looks to be one for the ages.

Yet there’s a downside to its very success, which might help explain why its shares fell more than 6% after its revenue forecast for the current quarter was just 2% below Wall Street expectations. First, the bullish news. For the fiscal year ending in September, the Cupertino, Calif.- based device maker is expected to generate annual growth rates for both sales and profit that are unprecedented for a large technology firm — or any company of Apple’s size.

The success of the global rollout of the iPhone 6 product line, especially in China, has produced Apple ( AAPL) numbers that make even its closest peers seem relatively puny.

Remember Google, the second- most- valuable tech firm whose stock gained $ 65 billion last Friday after its positive financial report?

Apple just posted year- overyear revenue growth for the June quarter that was roughly triple what Google reported for the same period — even though Apple’s sales were almost three times as large.

For the full fiscal year, Wall Street expects Apple to add a whopping $ 50 billion to its top line and finish the year with $ 233 billion in sales.

Google is expected to add $ 8.2 billion for its year ending in December, or less than onesixth Apple’s gain.

Yet the company’s massive numbers in 2015 will make for a very difficult year- over- year comparisons next fiscal year.

For example, Apple’s sales growth is seen shrinking to 6% next year as the Chinese smartphone market matures.

By contrast, Google sales growth is expected to accelerate to 15% in 2016.

While income investors who love Apple’s fat dividend aren’t going anywhere ( the company declared a 52- cents- a- share payment on Tuesday), its stock price could come under pressure if growth investors start to sour on it.

Apple’s most important hardware market has proved fickle over time, as former mobile kingpins BlackBerry, Motorola and Nokia were all swept aside by the changing desires of consumers.

The pressure will be on CEO Tim Cook and all those engineers and designers to produce a watch, iPad or laptop with sales good enough to offset the coming iPhone slowdown.

The success of the iPhone 6 product line, especially in China, has produced Apple numbers that make even its closest peers seem relatively puny.