Investors gave a tepid reaction to the event – a not-uncommon reaction when Apple debuts long-anticipated new features. The shares declined about 0.7% in premarket trading on Tuesday before New York exchanges opened. The stock had closed down 1.9% to $193.12, leaving it little changed for the year. Shares of some key Apple suppliers also sank following the event.
Apple is making a high-stakes bid to catch up with rivals in the booming AI market. After falling behind peers like Google and Microsoft, it is counting on a streamlined interface – and loyal customer base – to regain ground.
“This is a moment we’ve been working toward for a long time,” Senior vice president Craig Federighi, who oversees software engineering, said at the event. He described Apple Intelligence as “AI for the rest of us,” alluding to an old slogan about the Mac computer. The partnership with OpenAI will let customers access ChatGPT via Siri at no extra cost. Apple Intelligence will begin rolling out later this year, but some features won’t come until next year.
Shares of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, spiked as much as 1.5% during Apple’s keynote on Monday but were little changed at the close.Suppliers’ stocks slide
However, an overall lukewarm response to Apple’s new AI features sank shares of some of the company’s key Asian suppliers.
South Korea’s LG Innotek Co tumbled as much as 9.5%, the most since September 2022, while China’s Luxshare Precision Industry Co fell 4.1%. Both companies get more than 70% of their sales from Apple, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Analysts said the event to introduce the Apple Intelligence contained no big surprises, and would fail to alter the downbeat outlook for iPhone shipments this year.
