Apple sells $46 billion worth of iPhones over the summer as AI helps complete slump

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple snapped out of a recent iPhone sales slump during its summer quarter, an early sign that its recent efforts to revive demand for its marquee product with an infusion of artificial intelligence are paying off.

Sales of the iPhone totaled $46.22 billion for the July-September period, a 6% boost from the same period last year, according to Apple’s budgetary fourth-quarter update released Thursday. That advancement reversed two consecutive year-over-year declines in the iPhone’s quarterly sales.

The iPhone boost helped Apple deliver total quarterly turnover and boost that exceeded the analyst projections that sway investors, excluding a one-period fee of $10.2 billion to account for a recent European Union court selection that lumped the Cupertino, California, corporation with a huge statement for back taxes.

Apple earned $14.74 billion, or 97 cents per distribute, a 36% reduce from the same period last year. If not for the one-period levy hit, Apple said it would have earned $1.64 per distribute — topping the $1.60 per distribute predicted by analysts, according to FactSet Research. turnover rose 6% from last year to $94.93 billion, about $400 million more than analysts approximate.

But investors evidently were hoping for an even better quarter and appeared disappointed by an Apple approximate that implied its turnover for the October-December quarter covering the holiday shopping period might not develop as robustly as analysts envisioned. Apple’s distribute worth shed about 2% in Thursday’s extended market activity, leaving the shares hovering around $221 — well below their peak of about $237 reached in mid-October.

The latest quarterly results captured the first few days that consumers were able to buy a recent iPhone 16 line-up that included four different models designed to handle a variety of AI wizardry that the corporation is marketing as “Apple Intelligence.” The branding is part of Apple’s attempt to distinguish its way to AI from rivals such as Samsung and Google that got a head commence on bringing the technology to smartphones.

Even though the iPhone 16 was specifically built with AI in mind, the technology didn’t become available until Apple released a free software update earlier this week that activated its first batch of technological tricks, including a characteristic designed to make its virtual assistant Siri smarter, more versatile and more colorful. And those improvements are only available in the U.S. for now.

“This is just the beginning of what we depend generative AI can do,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts during a Thursday conference call.

Cook said plans to expand the AI iPhone features into other countries in December, as well as roll out other software updates that will inject even more of the technology in the iPhone 16 and two high-complete iPhone 15 models that are also equipped with the special computer chips needed for the slick recent features. The December expansion will include an alternative to connect with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to receive advantage of technology that Apple isn’t making on its own. More languages

Investors are betting that as Apple’s AI becomes more broadly available, it will prompt the hundreds of millions of consumers who are using older iPhones to upgrade to newer models in order to get their hands on the latest technology.

“We depend it’s a compelling upgrade rationale,” Cook asserted. But Investing.com analyst Thomas Monteiro believes iPhone sales would already be accelerating at a faster pace if consumers were blown away by Apple’s AI technology, increasing the pressure on the corporation “to do an overall better job to impress the community.”