According to Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple hasn’t increased the order of A18 chips from its supplier for the iPhone 16.
Apple Orders Same Number of iPhone 16 Units Compared to Last Year, Apple Intelligence Won’t Drive Bigger Sale Numbers
We came across a report a while back suggesting Apple is increasing the number of A18 chip orders from its suppliers because it expects Apple Intelligence will drive bigger sales. Ming-Chi Kuo has weighed in on this and says suppliers TSMC and Largan haven’t seen any increase in the number of orders at all.
Suppliers suggest Apple is forecasting similar iPhone demand this year when it comes to higher end models and thinking Apple Intelligence will drive sales is a little optimistic, according to Kuo. I agree with Kuo on this one, we’ve hardly seen evidence of AI as a sales driving factor. In fact, people don’t even want dedicated AI hardware, as the failure of Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 has spectacularly demonstrated.
The fact that Apple Intelligence will only be available as a beta and in English at first, the target audience is already quite small. If Apple plans to go into markets such as China with Apple Intelligence, only then it makes sense it would place a bigger order. But right now, the company is playing a safe bet and only forecasting the usual, nothing extra.
I firmly believe Apple Intelligence is not going to be a sales driving factor. Despite all the AI hype and everyone getting on board, consumers are somewhat reluctant to use these features on a daily basis. And the fact that we get hallucinated answers most of the time isn’t going to drive confidence in these features. Only a real-world test will prove which direction Apple is headed in.
At the time of writing, we know quite a bit about the iPhone 16. For example, it will feature faster charging speeds, will feature the A18 chip, it will come in a new color option, will feature a Samsung camera module and more.
