Apple is ramping up for a big iPhone 16 sales boost thanks to Apple Intelligence
Apple is hoping for a great second half of 2024, with the company reportedly having expectations that iPhone 16 shipments will be about 10% higher than its 2023 figures.
A render of the iPhone 16
Apple's presentation of Apple Intelligence at WWDC may have invigorated sales of its smartphone, thanks to the potential of Apple Intelligence. With the prospect of an AI boost, Apple is now hoping that consumer sentiment will translate into more sales.
Supply chain members have been warned by Apple that it is hoping to achieve a 10% growth in shipments compared to the second half of 2023. The source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that it would build on top of the 81 million iPhone 15 units that shipped in the second half of the year.
Sources also say that the reception of Apple Intelligence features has helped embolden this outlook.
A shared outlook
The report's claim echoes those of other observers seeing a confident smartphone producer at work.
On July 1, a report said Apple had increased its chip order from TSMC. The increase was sufficient enough to propose iPhone sales of between 90 million and 100 million units.
By contrast, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro had an order volume from September 2023 in the region of 80 million to 90 million.
A July 8 note to investors from analysts offered that a massive upgrade cycle, a so-called "Supercycle," is expected for the iPhone 16. A lot of it is driven by the addition of Apple Intelligence and the potential for AI firms to offer more services to consumers.
It's not only consumer demand for Apple Intelligence features prompting a potential wave of upgrades. Analysts on June 28 told investors that China's smartphone market is recovering, and so were Apple's fortunes.
Observing May 2024 sales, Apple's revenue from the region was starting to increase, with a 44% increase in sales compared to April. On a year-on-year basis, May 2024 was up 40%.
A change in confidence
This sentiment is in stark contrast to claims from March, when Apple's troubles in China led to a cut in expected shipments.
In April, it was indicated that shipments in the first quarter of 2024 had dropped 9.6% year-on-year. At the same time, it was observed that Chinese vendors and chief rival Samsung were seeing growth.
Even going back to November 2023, there was speculation that China shipments were down more than expected. There was an anticipation of a continued downward trend in China throughout 2024.
Now, half a year later, it seems things have brightened up for Apple from that dour outlook.
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Comments
And I think unless there's a truly remarkable improvement in Siri's capabilities, there won't be much of a bump at all. Don't know how many folks would splurge for a new iPhone for the privilege of being able to search ones email or photo library in more ways - or to rephrase one's email composition.
Give me a much better Siri and a higher-res optical zoom and I'll stand in line.
Perhaps 10% is not only AI.
That is a needle that pops the enormous bubble of HYPE surrounding AI! Not only is AI stupid in making all these errors, but we aren't allowed to train it so it can learn and be better for EVERYONE! That to me is crazy.
Sure, sure... There would need to be vetting in place so it won't learn lies and think such is truth. But that is within the capabilities of AI, I would think, being able to check hundreds of sources online to confirm or deny what individual human users are trying to teach it.
So on some level, ChatGPT4o is as brain dead stupid as SIRI. For example, I've trained SIRI countless times how to pronounce my daughter's name, but it still can't do it. And yes, I know about the Contacts trick that is supposed to work but doesn't. In like manner, no matter how much time and effort you invest in correcting ChatGPT, the people behind it refuse to allow it to LEARN from users, which means it is only as useful as its developer makes it, which is ridiculous in my opinion. I want a LEARNING "AI." It doesn't need to be sentient, but it needs to learn what is correct and what is incorrect, and that can happen much faster if global users can aid in that process, rather than expecting its developer to do it.
The promise of AI is far too restrained, in my opinion. Yes, there's some usefulness to it, but I'm constantly having to check the results to see if what is says is correct, which almost nullifies the time savings I hoped to get by using it.
2.) The private cloud AI, the 2nd prong, will be encrypted and anonymized. Apple would likely curate that intelligence to weed out bad information.
They demonstrated stumbling and changing what you said in a command or query. That shows real life usefulness. (especially for me)