Q1 earnings: Apple sees a sales slip in China, worrying investors
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Sorry Tim, has nothing to do with Apple UnIntelligence and everything to do with China becoming a hostile market as the CCP tries to make their domestic economy more insular with homegrown products being structurally advantaged over international ones. Long term the Chinese market is going to be a write off for most western companies given current trends.
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Not sure if it's Apple Intelligence, but the US does seem to be currently run by someone's LLM.
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I guarantee that the vast majority of iPhone buyers are not buying a new iPhone because of "Apple Intelligence".
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I noticed that in Canada Apple is offering 0% APR for iPhones, but 7.99% for Macs.
iPhone sales must be relatively weak.
iPhone sales must be relatively weak.
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A couple intersting (to me) stats from https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/apple-aapl-q1-earnings-2025.html
Top line good, gross margins also good. The fact that these went up while iPhone revenue went down suggests that Apple is getting better at making money from its other businesses. Given how dependent Apple is on iPhone, that seems like a good thing for them.
Still, gotta wonder what will happen to Services revenue if DOJ stops Google from paying Apple to being default search engine. That's $20B/year, about 20% of that Services number. Wall Street ain't gonna be happy if that happens.
- Revenue: $124.30 billion vs. $124.12 billion estimated
- Services revenue: $26.34 billion vs. $26.09 billion estimated
- Gross margin: 46.9% vs. 46.5% estimated
Top line good, gross margins also good. The fact that these went up while iPhone revenue went down suggests that Apple is getting better at making money from its other businesses. Given how dependent Apple is on iPhone, that seems like a good thing for them.
Still, gotta wonder what will happen to Services revenue if DOJ stops Google from paying Apple to being default search engine. That's $20B/year, about 20% of that Services number. Wall Street ain't gonna be happy if that happens.
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So I've heard, but would you like to cite some hard data to back up the claim?
I bought one of the newest generation ones recently as a gift, it wasn't for the intelligence bit but because the person's old iPhone was like 10 years old... for whatever that's worth.
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Barring regime change, I agree. Considering Chinese history vs the West, why would you expect anything different.
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After the latest 18.3 update generously enabled it for me, I quickly turned AI off in the settings menu along with the equally useless siri. Might I suggest doing the same? Feel free to uninstall the image playground app while you're at it.
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I hear you, but don't underestimate human ingenuity. The sun is a virtually limitless source of power, for one thing, and it's a big universe. How we grow is a better question.
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People have been saying for over a decade that for Apple "growth is unsustainable". Yet year after year, their top line and bottom line has increased (unlike several tech companies where their day in the sun is setting and yet the investors cling on). Maybe next year you will be proven right...or not.
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ubercurmudgeon
Ars Praefectus
Neither are concepts that have any meaning to a LLM, so maybe he got one to summarize the financial report for him?
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The Mac numbers are notable since their main consumer product - MacBook Air - for the first time in a while did not get the new generation M4 chips first. They’re still on 2023’s M3 chips. So the Mac is up entirely on the MacBook Pro and iMac. That bodes pretty well for 2025 for the Mac.
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Settings-> Apple Intelligence and Siri - >Apple Intelligence (toggle off)
You'll get this message;
"Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools will not be available if you continue. Siri will also stop using the additional capabilities provided by Apple Intelligence."
Select 'Turn Off Apple Intelligence'
Done.
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They cannot come to that realization. The FEATURE of the US economy\capitalism (at least from the rhetoric) is that it is always growing, always getting better and bigger. Manifest destiny. Anybody can be a billionaire if you just RISK enough, WANT enough, it will happen. Crashes are things that happens to others.
Every empire has fallen. So shall ours. The question is how fast, and how far.
I fear for my children.
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I contributed to those Q1 earnings with the purchase of a top-trim M4 Max MBP, but surely not for Apple Intelligence (it remains disabled). The 2012 MBP was about dead so an imminent upgrade was in the cards.
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Yeah , what a joke on causality arrows.
Its more likely apple intelligence was released first in higher wealth countries where their products already sell well
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I am as much an Apple fanboy as anyone, and have bought a Mac Studio (with a Studio Display), iPhone 16 ProMax & iPad Pro in the last 16 months to replace older items no longer being upgraded. For the life of me though, I cannot figure out what Apple Intelligence does that makes my work or life any better. It is turned off on everything. The only good thing I can say for it is that it is not as destructive as Apple Maps.
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Prices did not go up 5-10 percent for Macs, so no, they are selling more Macs, new fewer. The Mac Mini has been something a lot of people were waiting for, so that's why there was a big bump in sales.
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I'm in my 50's, and have been a huge techie all my life. I genuinely cannot fathom a consumer use case for AI. I can't imagine what I would do with it on my phone, on my desktop, etc. Don't get me wrong - I can definitely see a case for business. But as a private citizen? No appeal whatsoever.
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Someone in another thread said that setting the Siri language to a different one from the system language (such as Canadian English vs U.S. English) makes Apple Intelligence unavailable. I did this on my Macs and there's now a message in Settings that Apple Intelligence is unavailable, which is what I wanted.
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OrangeCream
Ars Legatus Legionis
It usually requires earnings to flatline or decline for several years. See INTC for a dramatic example
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OrangeCream
Ars Legatus Legionis
Maybe you’re too critical? AI is broad, and if you’re using the ANE you’re already using it.
Autocorrect, Camera, Live Text, Live Transcription, Portrait Mode, Face ID, and Siri Suggestions were previously implemented AI tools.
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I’ve been buying consumer electronics for sometime now; my first major purchase was the Fat Mac.
One of the lessons I’ve learned is that I want the company whose ecosystem I’ve invested in to be healthy. I was an Apple buyer from that Fat Mac until the mid 90s when Apple was on the verge of going bankrupt. I needed to buy a new computer, and because of Apple‘s financial weakness I decided to buy (what we then called) a WinTel box. it was a fraught decision for me, but I just didn’t have the money to invest in what might become an expensive doorstop.
A couple months later Microsoft invested in Apple, saving the company. It could’ve gone either way.
I’m very happy today to pay what I view is a very reasonable price for Apple products. Why do I say reasonable? Because in my experience, the lifecycle cost of Apple products is actually lower than the competition. But even if you view Apple products as overpriced, I’m happy to pay it because I want Apple to be a healthy company, because the alternative sucks.
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Not sure I'd consider Autocorrect as AI, spellcheck has been a "thing" for decades. Not sure here what you're referring to for Camera. Don't (knowingly) use Live Text, Live Transcription. Portrait Mode - I suspect you aren't referring to the orientation of the screen? Face ID, yes. Also don't use Siri Suggestions, again at least not knowingly. However, that said - your point is fair - some of what is being touted as AI is stuff that's been around for a bit, and it's useful.
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*Machine Learning.
AI has always been a marketing term not really a thing.
The problem is that if you say ML, then they ask “what kind?”.
And I say no usefulness for large language models (LLMs).
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No. For most of its history, Japan had the highest iOS market share.
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Seems like I’m a bit of an outlier here on Ars, but there are aspects of Apple Intelligence that I’m actually enjoying.
I find Siri much more usable, and I’m using it much more often. If I ask a question, oft times Siri just gives me an answer now instead of directing me to a webpage. And control over the device functions seems improved.
I also use the writing functions at times and find them fine compared to other AI options out there.
The email and message summaries are sometimes hilariously wrong, but I’m going to look at the messages or emails anyway. Given that this is essentially a beta product that doesn’t really bother me. I’m willing to cut Apple some slack on this.
And as goofy as this is for a 64-year-old man, I do occasionally send custom emoji and find it amusing. I’m not a huge emoji user but I probably use more now that I can create my own.
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You probably use AI all the time without realizing it. Apple was first on the market with dedicated neural units in iPhone because it's how they improved photo quality and added features. One of the most widespread and successful uses for AI has been in automated check clearing. It's how iOS lets you copy/paste text directly out of a photo. Very handy. Apple has been able to do face recognition in iPhoto/Photos for like a decade now.
The problem is you're equating AI with the the subscription services people are trying to sell you and not on the small day to day quality of life benefits that AI actually delivers, but isn't high profile enough to get CNBC creaming their pants over the potential to capture all of the money in the world.
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