The Fruity Cargo Cult Apple’s grand AI sales pitch appears to be landing with all the force of a wet sock.
A new UBS Evidence Lab survey has chucked a sizeable bucket of cold water over Job’s Mob’s iPhone demand story. While iPhone purchase intent rose in the US, UK and Germany, it appears to have slumped in China, where the faithful may be getting bored of paying more for marginally shinier glass.
The incoming Siri AI features do not appear to be stirring much desire either. This is awkward for Job’s Mob, which has been waving Apple Intelligence around as if it were not arriving late to the AI shindig with a product made by others with Apple branding.
UBS Evidence Lab surveyed more than 7,500 smartphone users across the US, UK, Germany, China and Japan.
On the sunnier side, average consumer intent to buy an iPhone in the next month rose three per cent year on year to 20 per cent of respondents in the US. It rose six per cent in the UK, four per cent in Germany and one per cent in Japan.
In China, iPhone purchase intent fell one per cent year on year to just 15 per cent of respondents, which is not ideal in one of Apple’s crucial markets.
The average age of an iPhone fell by 0.8 months to 22.9 months, but UBS said it was still hovering “near survey highs.” In other words, users are still hanging on to their phones for ages, mostly because they don’t believe the new one is much better.
That could get worse as iPhone price rises are already being pencilled in. The iPhone 18 Pro is expected to hit $1,399, which is a lot of cash to spend on a device whose most visible upgrade may be a marketing department discovering the word “intelligence.”
More painfully, Apple Intelligence and the new Siri are failing to spark much excitement. The share of respondents willing to upgrade sooner for the new features fell five per cent to just 24 per cent.
Meanwhile, the proportion of respondents who said they were indifferent to such features rose three per cent to 31 per cent. That is a large shrug aimed directly at the heart of Job’s Mob’s AI narrative.
Apple is apparently relying on the new Siri’s enhanced functionality to justify its upcoming price hikes. Asking punters to pay more for AI they did not ask for is bold.
The survey looks grim for the company’s expected foldable iPhone, tentatively dubbed the iPhone Ultra or iPhone Fold. Its net interest metric, defined as the difference between those expressing interest and those showing indifference, fell one per cent to 39 per cent.
That is not a collapse, but it does suggest the foldable hype balloon is leaking air before Job’s Mob has even finished painting it aluminium. Foldables were supposed to make phones exciting again, not give finance types another reason to whisper about demand pillars as if they were load-bearing marble.
There was one scrap of comfort. The foldable iPhone’s favourability relative to a generic foldable smartphone rose six per cent, showing that even when users are not excited, some still prefer the logo they know.
