Demand for Apple iPhone 16 is still slightly ahead of expectations

Some opinion polls show that iPhones are not as often given away as iPads or Apple Watches, but smartphones still account for half of the company’s revenue, so their sales statistics are important to Apple’s overall business. Analysts at Wedbush Securities claim that demand for smartphones of the iPhone 16 family so far at least meets their expectations.

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Apple’s new products in this segment entered the market at the end of September, but many experts unanimously said that their success would depend on the pace of expansion of the Apple Intelligence feature set. According to Wedbush representatives, the state of demand for the iPhone 16 can be described as matching or even slightly exceeding earlier forecasts. Since Apple Intelligence has not yet launched in many countries, including China, this event should become a catalyst for sales of the brand’s latest generation of smartphones in the relevant regions.

The release of iOS 18.2 from the point of view of stimulating demand for the iPhone 16 is much more important than the release of iOS 18.1, since the more recent update at least ensures the integration of the Siri voice interface with the ChatGPT chatbot. Third-party app developers will be able to create hundreds of AI software solutions on the iOS 18.2 platform in the coming months, and overall the demand cycle for such features for Apple will stretch over several years. iOS 18.2 is scheduled to be released early this month.

Considering that there are about 300 million iPhones in the world that need to be replaced with newer ones due to their age of more than four years, and approximately 100 million of them are in China, then Apple expects a fairly long update cycle, supported by stable demand for the iPhone 16. The company’s revenue as a whole will grow over the next 12 or 18 months, as Wedbush experts summarize.