Apple on Thursday disclosed its iPhone sales dipped slightly during the holiday-season quarter, signaling a sluggish start to the trendsetting company’s effort to catch up to the rest of Big Tech in the race to bring artificial intelligence to the masses.

Apple reported that iPhone sales for the quarter were down nearly 1% from the prior year to $69.1 billion, a miss from the $70.7 billion analysts were projecting, acc

Apple stock was rising in premarket trading Friday, boosted by the solid set of results the tech company posted after Thursday's close. Apple reported earnings of $2.40 a share on revenue of $124.3 billion for the quarter ended Dec.