iPhone 7 News: Apple's Quality Of Handsets The Cause Of Its Current Woes? [VIDEO]

Since the introduction of the original iPhone nine years ago, Apple has been on a roll. Today, the company stands as the world's most highly-valued publicly-traded company, worth a staggering $548 billion. As much as the company's current numbers are impressive, however, there is also no denying that the firm's revenue is starting to decline.

In fact, the $548 billion that the company is currently worth is just about 75 percent of the Cupertino giant's worth last year. Thus, analysts and investors have begun voicing out their concerns that Apple might end up being the next BlackBerry or Nokia - a dominant firm that would end up potentially bankrupt.

Heralding the company's financial decline is the relatively underwhelming sales of its current flagship units, the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus. While the devices are the most powerful smartphones coming out from the tech giant to date, they were not able to attract as many buyers as Apple had hoped.

One of the most notable reasons behind this could actually be rooted in Apple itself; specifically, the firm's older devices. When iPhone 6S and 6S Plus sales first showed signs of weakness, analysts were quick to point out that a huge number of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users did not upgrade their smartphones that year. Thus, even if Apple had a very strong and stable user base, the upgrades in the 6S and the 6S Plus were not enough to encourage consumers to ditch their year-old device and purchase a new unit.

This is actually one of the reasons why Apple released the iPhone SE recently. Even in the era of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6S and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6S Plus, there were still a significant number of Apple users who were using phones like the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5S. Thus, the release of the SE was the firm's attempt to encourage users who were still holding on to their devices from years ago, to finally upgrade.

Apart from the incremental upgrades between the iPhone 6 and the 6S, another reason why iPhone users seem to keep their devices for a long time is the quality of Apple's smartphones. With a premium build, the devices are definitely good for more than a year.

With the iPhone 7 looking to be yet another variation of the iPhone 6 design, there is a pretty big chance that users might once more skip this year's upgrade cycle -- unless, of course, Apple offers its loyal user base a very persuasive pitch.