"AI silence" cannot cover up the narrative of "iPhone upgrading and generation change". Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. maintains a bullish view on Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) despite the disappointment at WWDC.

Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) just held its WWDC 2025, even though lacking major AI breakthroughs, causing its stock price to drop nearly 3% since this week. Its total market value still ranks among the top three in the global stock market, and remains one of the most watched AI concept stocks by Wall Street financial giants. After this week's WWDC, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. reconfirmed its "buy" rating on Apple Inc. stock, giving a target price of up to $253 within 12 months, indicating a potential upward space of up to 30% in the eyes of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. The tech giant held the 2025 Apple Inc. Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2025) on Monday, but failed to introduce significant AI technology updates. Nonetheless, the analyst team at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. continues to be optimistic about the trend of Apple Inc. stock after WWDC 2025, and still believes that the new round of AI-driven iPhone "upgrade super cycle" has just begun. "After the WWDC25 keynote, Apple Inc. stock fell by about 1% (stock has previously dropped over 2% after WWDC24). Apple Inc. only announced its more innovative operating system and design improvements and new features for first-party apps, along with the upcoming exclusive AI app developer ecosystem for Apple Inc., but failed to showcase significant progress in Apple Inc.'s AI feature - Apple Intelligence," Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. said in a recent research report. The company also confirmed that the major upgrade of turning Apple Inc.'s Siri voice assistant into a more personalized voice version of "AI super assistant" may be delayed until next year. This is in stark contrast to the ambitious AI goals showcased at last year's developers conference, where Siri was the core AI feature highlight mentioned multiple times, and Apple Inc. management expected it to be launched this year, but the actual smartphone functions related to AI did not appear as optimistic as last year's WWDC showed. Despite the significant disappointment in the market about Apple Inc.'s AI, the analyst team at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. believes that with the unmatched consumer loyalty created by its ecosystem, Apple Inc. is still the absolute leader in the consumer electronics sector, with new features targeting overall user experience enhancement, including a new interface called "Liquid Glass," AI-driven new features, enhanced visual intelligence, and several features aimed at improving user quality of life. The AI-driven iPhone "upgrade super cycle" has just begun Looking ahead to Apple Inc.'s future performance growth, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. expects that with the continuous release of new flagship iPhone models in 2025, 2026, and 2027 driving overall sales and revenue growth, and a super cycle driven by "Apple Intelligence" with more powerful features after updates and iterations, Apple Inc.'s fundamentals will see significant expansion, and the management's outlook for stock buybacks will also expand along with performance growth. "We still maintain our 'buy' rating on Apple Inc. as our most optimistic outlook, because we believe that the market's focus on the slowdown in the company's consumer electronics sales growth completely overlooks the strong sales growth potential brought by Apple Inc.'s exclusive ecosystem and the unprecedented smartphone upgrade expectations driven by AI," the analyst team at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. said. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. indicates that Apple Inc.'s own valuation and fundamental expectations are expected to re-enter an upward trajectory driven by the all-new upgrade cycle driven by Apple Intelligence, consumers' advanced stocking logic of iPhones, Apple Inc.'s strong exclusive closed-loop ecosystem, supply chain resilience, and strong bargaining power. In terms of current valuation, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. states that compared to Apple Inc.'s historical average valuation level - both absolute and relative, as well as other six major tech giants, Apple Inc.'s valuation currently has strong investment attractiveness for global funds. The analyst team at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. emphasizes that the AI-driven super upgrade cycle has just begun, and is expected to drive Apple Inc.'s performance into a significant upward growth trajectory since the second half of this year. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. expects the financial market's focus to shift to the new generation iOS system and the more powerful features driven by "Apple Intelligence" after updates and iterations, as well as the iPhone 17 flagship series set to be released in the fall of 2025. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. expects these factors to drive market optimism towards Apple Inc.'s stock price and the entire "fruit chain". Integrating large AI models with consumer electronic terminals such as PCs and smartphonesCreating large models that can run inference offline on local devices with increasingly strong performance, while also being able to leverage extensive cloud AI computing resources to adapt to users' deeper personal needs, has become the most core content of the "edge AI" in the AI blueprints of many technology companies worldwide.In the imagination of Apple fans, with the support of cloud and edge AI big models, Apple Inc.'s Siri may no longer be a clumsy formalized voice assistant. By combining cloud AI computing resources and edge generative artificial intelligence functions, Apple Inc.'s iPhone models are expected to achieve a more personalized "private AI assistant" that better meets the individual needs of users, similar to the "all-purpose AI companion" in the movie "Her." Apple Inc. has stated that the updated Siri voice assistant will be able to utilize user personal information to answer questions and perform tasks in various applications, and will have the highest level of privacy protection capability. Morgan Stanley: The market is still expecting the "AI narrative" of Apple Inc., but the implementation path may be more long-drawn-out Another Wall Street giant, Morgan Stanley, recently stated that Apple Inc.'s WWDC 2025 lacks major AI breakthroughs, but its AI narrative logic is still an important catalyst for the bullish outlook on Apple Inc. stock. However, the implementation path of the AI narrative may be more protracted. Morgan Stanley still maintains a "hold" rating and a target price of $235 for Apple Inc., believing that Apple Inc. remains key to victory in the AI era with its strong ecosystem, user base, and privacy standards, as well as the more powerful "Apple Intelligence" after the update and iteration. Morgan Stanley stated that Apple Inc. introduced multiple new Apple Intelligence features at WWDC 2025, including broader language support, deep integration with ChatGPT, real-time translation, and opened its AI big language model to over 30 million global potential AI application developers, akin to a new era of the App Store. However, Apple Inc.'s software business leader, Craig Federighi, expects a more personalized Siri AI voice assistant to be launched in the "coming year," meeting investor expectations but with a still long timeline. Currently, only 20% of iPhones support Apple Intelligence, indicating that there is still a massive opportunity for upgrades. Morgan Stanley also stated that if Apple Inc. were to charge a subscription fee of $9.99 per month for more advanced versions of Apple Intelligence in the future, only 10% of Apple Inc. device install base could cover all expenses currently paid to Alphabet Inc. Class CTAC.