Apple Raises Expectations for AI Phones... Approaching This Year's Highest Stock Price

Stock Price Surpasses $194 for 3 Days
Approaching This Year's High of $195.18
WWDC to Be Held from the 10th
Generative AI Expected to Be Integrated into iPhone

Among the five major Big Tech companies listed on the US Nasdaq, Apple, which was considered the most lagging in the transition to artificial intelligence (AI), is approaching its highest stock price of the year. This is interpreted as a result of Apple's announcement of its full-scale entry into the AI phone market.

On the 3rd (local time) at the New York Stock Exchange, Apple's stock closed at $194.03, up 0.93% from the previous trading day. Since hitting the year's low of $165.00 on April 19, it has rebounded about 17.6%, nearing this year's high of $195.18. Its market capitalization ($2.9753 trillion) is also attempting to reclaim the $3 trillion mark.

The recent upward trend has been driven by expectations that Apple will announce fierce competition with Samsung Electronics in the AI phone market following the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) starting on the 10th.

The market expects Apple to announce plans to integrate generative AI into the iPhone operating system iOS 18 at WWDC. To this end, Apple is known to be utilizing OpenAI's ChatGPT technology. In particular, OpenAI surprised the market last month by unveiling a new AI model called ‘GPT-4o’ that can converse with humans via voice, which has further raised expectations for Apple.

Additionally, ongoing negotiations with Google to build the Gemini AI engine into the iPhone have also been seen as positive news. Although there has been no official announcement of cooperation with either OpenAI or Google, analysts believe that collaboration with either party could be beneficial for Apple. There are also predictions that Apple will apply generative AI to its voice assistant ‘Siri’ to enable conversational interactions with users.

However, variables for Apple's stock price remain. Since Microsoft (MS) is the largest investor in OpenAI, MS could potentially hinder cooperation between the two sides. There are also views that the sales boost effect of AI phones may not be significant. Bloomberg Intelligence (BI), a research arm of Bloomberg, recently forecasted this, citing that the smartphone industry has entered a mature stage.