Apple (AAPL) is set to report quarterly earnings on Thursday, October 31. IDC research director Ramon T. Llamas joins Seana Smith and Madison Mills on Catalysts to discuss what he’s watching for during the earnings report, including insights into the iPhone 16 reception and updates on the Apple Intelligence rollout.

“We're still very much in the early innings of the iPhone 16,” Llamas tells Yahoo Finance. “There's a lot of things going on with the iPhone 16 that makes it really wonderful. I mean, one of the things is the camera, a lot of it is the interface. But you got to also realize that people are taking their time replacing their phones longer than they used to.” The lengthening upgrade cycle has contributed to concerns around demand.

Llamas says he looks for three things when a company releases a new tech product: convenience, ease of use, and utility. “Number one is going to be convenience. Does it make my work, or does it make my life a lot easier than it used to be? Do I have to just do one click, or do I have to go through five clicks? So that really helps. Number two: is it just going to be very intuitive? Is this going to be something that I don't really have to think about? I can almost do it blindfolded. Is it going to be that easy? The third thing that I'm really looking for is how is this going to benefit people's lives?” As Apple’s artificial intelligence (AI) features come out, "there's adoption, then there's usage, then there's sustained usage," Llamas notes, saying he'll use his three things framework to gauge where Apple is at in this journey.

He says, “The single biggest thing” going into the report is the iPhone, and the second is Services. The iPhone “always accounts for about, you know, 67% to 70% of total revenue each time that you look at it,” while the Services sector “almost literally prints money.”

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here.

This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.