Apple Intelligence Expands to Global Users, Including China – Another iPhone Moment for AAPL?

TradingKey - On March 31, Apple (AAPL.US) officially announced the expansion of its Apple Intelligence feature to more languages and regions worldwide. Finally, Apple users around the globe have access to the company’s AI functionality.

Apple Intelligence is a personal artificial intelligence system that provides useful and relevant intelligence while taking an extraordinary step forward in AI privacy.

Unlike its previous availability limited to users in the U.S. and U.K., Apple Intelligence will now support several new languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese, as well as localized English for Singapore and India.

The company stated that nearly all users globally can now access Apple Intelligence. Additionally, Apple launched visionOS 2.4, bringing Apple Intelligence to the Apple Vision Pro headset for the first time.

As a result, on Monday (March 31), Apple's stock price increased by 1.94%, closing at $222.13, leading the "Magnificent Seven" stocks in the US stock market. Apple's stock price has fallen by 11.30% so far in 2025.

On Monday, Goldman Sachs reaffirmed its buy rating on Apple's stock and maintained a target price of $294.

Earnings reports show that Apple’s iPhone revenue for the first fiscal quarter ended December 28, 2024, declined 0.8% year-over-year, with revenue from the critical Greater China market dropping 11%. According to IDC, Apple maintained its leading market share in China last quarter, but smartphone shipments fell by 9.6%.

Market analysts widely believe that in the face of a sluggish and highly competitive smartphone market, Apple needs to provide consumers with a compelling reason to purchase a new iPhone to drive growth in related businesses.

Barron’s pointed out that the negative for iPhone sales was weakness in China, where Apple’s AI service isn’t available yet, but bulls are betting on that to change soon.

Wedbush analysts stated that with the rollout of Apple Intelligence in China, India, and other markets, the strong momentum of the iPhone 16 product cycle will become even more evident over the next two quarters.

Apple CEO Tim Cook also noted during the Q1 2025 earnings call that they are seeing stronger year-over-year sales performance for the iPhone 16 series in markets where Apple Intelligence has been launched compared to markets without this AI feature.