Apple's iPhone sales soared to a new quarterly record during the holiday season, despite artificial intelligence blunders that prompted the technology trendsetter to get a helping hand from Google.
The October-December results announced Thursday reflect the allegiance of Apple's fans, who eagerly snapped up the latest iPhone 17 models even though the company still hasn't delivered on its 2024 promise to smarten up the device's Siri assistance with AI.
Apple tried to offset its AI miscues with a new ''liquid glass'' design for the iPhone 17 and older models installed by way of a free software upgrade released last September. That formula helped produce iPhone sales of $85.3 billion, a 23% increase from the same time in the previous year. It marked Apple's highest iPhone sales for a three-month period since the device's debut in 2007.
The iPhone's robust performance propelled Apple to a profit of $42.1 billion, or $2.84 per share for the quarter, a 16% increase from the previous year. Total revenue also rose 16% from the previous year to $143.8 billion. Both the earnings and sales exceeded the analyst projections that steer investors.
Apple's shares rose by more than 1% in extended trading after the numbers came out. But the stock price still remains slightly down so far this year, and isn't that much higher from where it finished at the end of 2024.
The Cupertino, California, company will try to sustain the momentum by finally releasing a batch of delayed AI features, including an Siri upgrade that is supposed to make the assistant more conversational and versatile.
To pull it off, Apple is tapping into Google's latest AI model, Gemini 3, in a tacit acknowledgment of its own shortcomings in a technology that's widely considered to be the industry's biggest breakthrough since the iPhone's introduction.
Despite its AI deficiencies, the iPhone ended last year as the worldwide sales leader with a nearly 20% market share that ranked just ahead of Samsung, according to the research firm International Data Corp.
