Some Apple investors are losing patience. They are no longer satisfied with the artificial intelligence (AI) blueprint that the company continues to paint, but want to see real results. Tim Chubb, chief investment officer of wealth management company Girard, said, "The market has already experienced some fatigue with Apple and AI. Due to repeated delays, it is difficult for us to give Apple as much trust as we did in the past." Girard holds Apple stocks but is underweight.

Wall Street originally expected Apple to produce stunning results at last week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), but the final release was considered lackluster and the product launch schedule was also disappointing.

The significantly upgraded Siri AI assistant will be launched this fall, but it will only be launched in beta form, which means it is still in the development stage. This broke the market's hope that "Apple's AI strategy is on track and can promote the iPhone replacement cycle."

Apple's stock price had been rising before WWDC, rising by more than 15% in April, setting its best monthly performance since July 2022.

But it has just experienced its worst week since February, falling 5.27%. The year-to-date increase is only slightly more than 10%, significantly lagging behind the Nasdaq 100 Index, which rose nearly 20% during the same period.


Investors originally hoped that the conference would prove that Apple was still the innovation leader in the industry, but the market response was muted. According to data compiled by the media, most analysts have not even raised their revenue expectations for Apple in 2027 and 2028.

Analysts predict that Apple's revenue growth will reach nearly 15% in fiscal year 2026, which ends in September 2026, significantly higher than the 6.4% growth rate in fiscal year 2025. However, the growth rate will slow down to 8.6% in fiscal year 2027, and will slow down further in the next two years.

If the iPhone replacement cycle falls short of expectations or is delayed again, Apple's stock price may come under pressure. Apple's current expected price-to-earnings ratio for the next 12 months exceeds 33 times, much higher than the average of 23 times over the past decade. It ranks second among the "Big Seven", second only to Tesla.

"I don't see anything that would make me want to upgrade my phone," Girard's Chubb said. "The current valuation is based on a product that has not yet launched and has been delayed multiple times. The market seems to assume that Apple will be able to successfully execute, but in fact it has made many mistakes in the past few years."

However, many institutions on Wall Street still believe that Apple is still in a good position as consumers use external AI services through Apple hardware.

The problem is that the AI ​​functions released by Apple this time are considered to be relatively limited and lack competitiveness compared with Anthropic, OpenAI and Google's products. In particular, Google Gemini technology has even become an important support for Apple's basic AI model.

KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Brandon Nispel pointed out in a report that this WWDC was supposed to be a critical moment for "Apple Intelligence" to promote the replacement cycle, but now it seems that this is not the case.

Nispel believes that Apple’s release has “no obvious signs of AI commercialization” and is over-reliant on Gemini, which brings limited actual value when combined with the application ecosystem. The upgraded Siri is still inferior to other large language models when used alone.

Needham analyst Laura Martin also pointed out that Apple executives failed to explain how AI will bring revenue growth, profit improvement or cost savings.

"Apple did not show how it achieved paid upgrades through AI tools and functions, nor did it explain how AI could help reduce costs." She also believed that Apple relied too much on Google in the field of AI, and the latter happened to be its biggest competitor in the smartphone business.

Of course, the reasons to be bullish on Apple are still clear: The company has a massive cash hoard, a healthy balance sheet, solid earnings growth, and consistent stock buybacks, while other big tech companies aren't as aggressive in repurchasing stock as they were in the past.

In addition, although Apple has not yet become an important player in the field of AI, it does not have to bear the risks caused by huge AI capital expenditures and AI impact, which are plaguing the software industry.

Jed Ellerbroek, portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management, said: "Apple is still a very high-quality company, and its current competitive position has not deteriorated. I still believe that if Apple can launch technology that truly improves users' lives, then the replacement cycle that the market is expecting is still possible."

But he also admitted that the latest content released by Apple did not convince him that a major change is coming. "It cannot be said to be bad, but it cannot be said to be encouraging. The overall feeling is a bit boring, and it also makes the AI ​​cloud hanging over Apple's stock price thicker."