US Market
Apple disclosed that its iPhone sales dipped slightly during the past quarter, signalling a sluggish start to the trendsetting company’s effort to catch up to the rest of Big Tech in the race to bring artificial intelligence to the masses.
The iPhone’s roughly one per cent drop in revenue from the previous year’s October-December period wasn’t entirely unexpected, given the first software update enabling the device’s AI features didn’t arrive until just before Halloween, and the technology still isn’t available in many markets outside the United States.
The countries still awaiting Apple’s AI suite include China, a key market where the company continued to lose ground. Although he didn’t mention China, Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors on a conference call that a software upgrade enabling the AI features in more European markets, as well as Japan and Korea, will be rolling out in April.
But, in the past quarter, Apple also was only able to eke out a modest revenue gain across its entire business, although the results came in ahead of the analyst projections that guide investors. The Cupertino, California company earned US$36.3 billion, or US$2.40 per share, a seven per cent increase from the previous year. Revenue edged up from the previous year by four per cent to US$124.3 billion.
Those numbers included iPhone revenue of US$69.1 billion. In China, Apple’s total revenue registered US$18.5 billion, an 11 per cent decrease from the previous year.