Apples langsame Fortschritte bei der KI-Strategie führen zu Zweifeln

Some investors of Apple Inc. are gradually losing their patience. They are no longer satisfied with the constant artificial intelligence (AI) visions the company is painting, but want to see real results.

Tim Chubb, Chief Investment Manager of asset management firm Girard, said: "The market has already developed a certain weariness towards Apple and AI. Due to the repeated delays, it's difficult for us to give Apple the full trust we used to." Girard holds Apple stocks, but in a reduced amount.

Wall Street had expected that Apple would present impressive results at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) that took place last week. However, the final announcements were considered lackluster, and the product market date paths were disappointing.

The highly upgraded Siri AI assistant will be introduced this fall, but only in a test version, which means it's still in the development phase. This has shattered the hope that "Apple's AI strategy is on the right track and can boost the iPhone replacement cycle."

Apple's stock prices rose continuously before the WWDC. In April, they rose by over 15%, which was the best monthly performance since July 2022.

However, they then experienced the worst week since February, with a total loss of 5.27%. The annual gain was only slightly over 10%, significantly trailing the nearly 20% increase of the Nasdaq 100 index during the same period.

Investors had hoped that this conference would prove that Apple is still the innovation leader in the industry. But the market reaction was rather dull. According to data compiled by the media, most analysts didn't even raise their sales forecasts for Apple for 2027 and 2028.

Analysts expect that Apple's sales growth rate in the fiscal year 2026, which ends in September 2026, will be nearly 15%, significantly higher than the 6.4% in the fiscal year 2025. However, in the fiscal year 2027, the growth will slow down to 8.6% and decline further in the following two years.

If the iPhone replacement cycle doesn't meet expectations or is delayed again, Apple's stock price could come under pressure. The current expected price - earnings ratio of Apple for the next 12 months is over 33, far above the average of 23 in the past ten years. It ranks second among the "Seven Giants", only behind Tesla.

Chubb of Girard said: "What I'm seeing isn't enough to make me upgrade my phone. The current valuation is based on products that haven't hit the market yet and have been postponed multiple times. The market seems to assume that Apple can surely implement its plans successfully, but in fact, it has made many mistakes in recent years."

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Still, many Wall Street institutions believe that Apple will still hold an advantageous position when consumers use external AI services through Apple's hardware.

The problem is that the AI features presented by Apple this time were considered rather limited and are not competitive compared to the products of Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. In particular, Google's Gemini technology has even become an important support for Apple's basic AI model.

Brandon Nispel, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, wrote in his report that this year's WWDC should actually have been the decisive moment for the "Apple Intelligence"-driven replacement cycle, but that doesn't seem to be the case now.

Nispel believes that there are "no clear signs of AI commercialization" in Apple's announcement this time. It's overly dependent on Gemini, and the actual benefits brought by the integration with the application environment are limited. The upgraded Siri is also still behind other large language models when used alone.

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Laura Martin, an analyst at Needham, also noted that Apple's management hasn't explained how AI will increase sales, profits, or reduce costs.

"Apple hasn't shown how it can increase fees through AI tools and functions, nor has it explained how AI can help reduce costs." She also believes that Apple is too dependent on Google in the AI field, which is precisely its biggest competitor in the smartphone segment.

Of course, there are still very clear reasons to prefer Apple: The company has huge cash reserves, a healthy balance sheet, stable profit growth, and a continuous stock buy - back policy, while other large technology companies are no longer as active in buying back stocks as before.

Moreover, although Apple is not currently a major player in the AI field, it also doesn't have to bear the huge AI capital expenditures and the risks arising from the AI wave. These problems are currently plaguing the software industry.

Jed Ellerbroek, a portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management, said: "Apple is still a company of the highest quality, and its competitive position hasn't deteriorated. I still believe that if Apple can introduce a technology that really improves users' lives, the replacement cycle expected by the market is still possible."

However, he also admitted that Apple's latest announcements couldn't convince him that a major transformation is imminent. "It's not terrible, but it's not encouraging either. Overall, it feels a bit boring and has thickened the AI shadow over Apple's stock price."

This article is from the WeChat account “Kechuangban Daily”, author: Zhao Hao. Published by 36Kr with permission.