Apple launches new iPhone with AI capabilities amid sales slump • FRANCE 24 English

let's turn to our business segment Shan pel is joining us for that we're going to start with a hotly anticipated iPhone launch at the Apple's headquarters um particularly watched this one what's the fuss about sh the fuss was all about iPhone 16 and its variants that will go on sale on September 20th with the basic model selling for $799 about € 723 it'll be more expensive in France though uh CEO Tim Cook and his team presented a wide range of new features an external camera button longer lasting batteries more powerful chips and um enhanced privacy they also unveiled a new airpods that could be used as hearing aids but the most anticipated uh feature in add-ons was the inclusion of artificial intelligence uh back in June at its developer conference the tech giant uh presented its new 4A into Ai and and this phone is really built to handle uh the new technology with for instance Chad GPT uh Incorporated into the Siri voice assistant but as analyst Bob o' Donnell explains most of these AI features won't be available right away uh but apple is still banking on people trading in their older devices so that they are ready when they do come online honestly I'm not convinced that you know the capabilities that they introduce is going to drive that many people to upgrade what I found really interesting actually is how much they focused on trade-ins I don't remember them ever talking so much about trade-ins to encourage people to upgrade and you know the other problem of course is all of the initial AI models are us English only so that cuts out you know a decent portion of the world and some of this stuff won't come until next year for other regions around the world and other languages so that's a bit of a hit when you think about Apple from a Global Perspective yes so Sean how important then is this for Apple well uh Apple's been really lagging behind in the race to include AI technology and its handsets and has seen it sales slump since the end of last year uh in comparison Samsung's latest G Galaxy model had AI features when it was launched in January and Google's latest pixel device had them in their launch last month this is really an unusual place for Apple to be after being uh the torch bearer of personal Computing uh with the Macintosh personal computer in the 80s and and being the pioneer of the smart phones uh with the first iPhone in the uh early 2000s uh iPhones are still the company's major driver of Revenue representing just short of half of all sales in the last quarter at 45.8% the second biggest Revenue maker is digital services at around 28% and many other sales are uh for products that are really tied to the iPhone the iCloud services or airpods uh for instance so making sure the product is competitive is crucial for the trillion dollar company with Revenue last year that was worth the GDP of Denmark wow approaching 50% it's incredible that isn't it I'm it's also quite rare isn't it charl these launches take place on Mondays why on Earth is that well there are two reasons all tied to the news cycle this Tuesday first off um the presidential debate between KLA Harris and Donald Trump um perhaps overshadowing that launch and also second is a resolution of a European Union uh commission case over whether Apple has to pay $4 billion in taxes uh that's about 13 billion EUR the argument being that Ireland that the country where it has its EU headquarters provided the company with a sweetheart tax Arrangement that decision will be uh taking place this morning yeah don't want the two things colliding let's look at the markets then where did Apple stock finish the session well Apple stock actually fell by 1.5% during the presentation but by the close it had recovered basically finishing the session flat this makes sense considering many of these new features had already been announced prior to the iPhone launch EU markets then how are they doing right now well the major borses in Europe opening lower this Tuesday following a more positive session on Wall Street after the worst week of the year last week uncertainty really the word of the day in Europe there you can see that the footsie in London down three t0 of a percent now our highly anticipated report on the eu's global competitiveness is really sounding the alarm on the Block's economic and social future mhm last year EU commission president Ursula V liion assigned former European central bank chief Mario dragi the task of reviewing Europe's ability to compete with Rivals like the US and China Key among dr's findings is that the EU needs an additional 800 billion EUR in investment to avoid being left behind uh Brian Quinn has the details an existential Challenge in a landmark new report on EU competitiveness former European Central Bank Chief Mario dragy says the block is being left behind by the US and China putting its economic growth and its social model at risk the European Union values are Prosperity Equity Freedom peace and democracy in a sustainable world and if Europe can no longer provide them to its people it will have lost its reason for being dragy says the EU needs 800 billion euros per year in new Investments an amount equivalent to 5% of the Block's total GDP more than twice suspending level of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II EU commission president Ursula Vander liion says the block needs a fairer more Equitable economy with growth driven in part by a clean energy transition the only way to ensure our long-term competitiveness is to shift away from fossil fuels and towards a clean competitive and circular economy an over Reliance on the US for defense also call called out with the report noting that European countries buy nearly 2third of their defense equipment from us firms instead of investing in Continental companies to meet the spending levels called for dragy and vand liion want the EU to issue more common debt as it did to fund covid relief and Recovery efforts that call though already meeting with push back from Germany the blocks top economy itself struggling wary of being called on to fund its poorer neighbors anticipating criticism dragy warned that the alternative is a slow Agony his report sure to be a topic of heated debate as the EU gets set to confirm its new Commissioners in just days Char thank you very much pigram with the business news for us there on France 24