Apple Q1 - Beat on sales and profits

On Thursday evening, Apple reported its earnings for the festive season quarter. The tech behemoth had revenue and profits that were higher than the street was expecting, posting sales of $120 billion for the quarter, a growth of 2.1% over a year earlier. The share price was little moved.

There was some concern last year amongst Apple analysts that the iPhone was losing its appeal. The good news is that is clearly not the case, with sales of iPhones up 6%. The very important services division showed revenue growth of 11%.

Tim Cook mentioned the magical two letters, "A + I" during the earnings call, saying that Apple would have their own products out later this year. Since 2017, Apple has bought 21 AI start-ups, showing that it is also a real contender in this world-changing technology.

Apple will most likely bring out its own version of ChatGPT and Bard, becoming an integral part of how the Apple ecosystem works. Think of asking Siri to plan your next holiday, she will access your Booking.com app, your calendar app, and Uber app to facilitate all of the planning.

What we know at the moment is that Apple is focusing on building AI services that work really well with its in-house chipsets on iPhones and Macs, running on the device instead of needing internet access. This a big advantage over its competitors. When the AI technology is ready, Apple will also be able to send it to their over 1 billion devices on the ecosystem by way of an operating system upgrade, putting it ahead of the competition.

True to form, Apple generally isn't first with new products, but when they do launch, they are miles ahead of everyone else. Let's see if it will be the same with AI.