Apple (AAPL) released its third quarter report revealing it beat analysts' expectations on the top and bottom lines, although it showed a decline in iPhone sales year-over-year. Apple showed off its AI software update at its latest WWDC. Could it spur an iPhone upgrade cycle?

Maxim Group managing director and senior consumer internet analyst Tom Forte joins Asking For A Trend to break down Apple's latest quarterly report and how the company will operate moving forward.

Forte points out: "I think the ultimate story for Apple is that there will be an upgrade cycle for iPhones, which is still the most important product, half their revenue. The question is how quickly will that start? Because there were headlines recently suggesting that they're going to have new hardware for consumers, assumingly in September, but they may have to wait for a software update to get Apple Intelligence to work."

Forte has a Hold rating on the stock: "Because you're looking at a PE north of 30 times versus the big tech peers, more like 27.5. And when you compare the iPhone trends before the 5G, there was actually a lot more pent up demand for new iPhones leveraging 5G networks then I believe there's pent up demand for artificial intelligence." However, he points out a challenge for Apple: "When you look at Europe, which is about 25% of revenue and China, which is about 19% of revenue, it doesn't appear that they're going to be able to launch Apple Intelligence any time soon."

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This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino