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.

iPhone sales of $69.1 billion were, however, down slightly and below forecasts of about $71 billion. Revenue for the China region, where Apple has come under increasing competitive pressure from local smartphone makers such as Huawei and Xiaomi, dropped about 11 per cent to $18.5 billion.