(Video Transcript)

Competition fierce for Apple

Apple’s results haven’t sparked as much interest as the company had hoped. Perhaps this underscores just how tricky things are for the iPhone giant. Apple is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Fewer people are buying the iPhone, its flagship product and this, it says, will persist for a fourth quarter in a row.

Competition is also fierce and, at the same time, its brand-new shiny product, the Vision Pro, isn’t yet in consumers’ hands. Well, all this comes at a time when it says its services performance has been robust. The question is whether its robust performance in the services part of its business, home to Apple TV Plus, can continue to grow, buffering its iPhone weakness while it gets Vision Pro on the shelves.

Challenge of monetising AI

Let’s have a look at the chart here for you, because Apple’s shares have risen quite remarkably, beating the average handily if you look at that against the NASDAQ. The other thing is AI: Apple’s boss Tim Cook said the company is investing heavily to keep ahead of big tech rivals, including Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet. Starting this fall, one feature will be the ability to transcribe voicemail messages in real time on the iPhone.

So where is the salad dressing? Well, the key is spotting when Apple’s AI spend will leap from R&D into the profit side of its balance sheets.