Every company has sales and that is broken down to products and which products or services sell the most. As you do your homework of the company, you can determine which products is more important to the sales picture than others. Along with the sales, every year is the new features or updates which is used to encourage people to continue to buy the product. Most of this happens behind the scenes and for most people as long as they like the product that is it. For investors that is the start, you will ask what are the trends? do people actually like the updates? sometimes being cynical helps, but you are allowed to fall in love with the product once again.

In the world of smartphones, Apple unveiled its iPhone 16. In an article by Max Cherney and Kenrick Cai of Reuters, the iPhone 16 is artificial intelligence boosted. The iPhone also accounted for more than half of Apple’s $383 billion in sales in 2023. Will people upgrade?

Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI software, will be used to improve its personal assistant Siri. Other features are understanding and identifying objects captured by the phone camera. Craig Fedeighi, Apple’s software engineering chief, said Siri will be more natural, more personal to you.

Nabila Popal, an analyst with International Data Corp, said the target market for upgrades is people who owned a iPhone for 3 to 4 years. This will future proof their phones for AI upgrades.

Apple also unveiled Watches and AirPods with health-related focused features.

In China, Apple was the dominate phone but not the top 5 list are all vendors in China. A number of years ago, the Central government encouraged government employees to move away from Apple and in China what the central government wants, it will gain acceptance.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for the companies you invest in do you have a reasonable idea of who are the ones with the biggest product sales. If you do, then at key points of the calendar you can see how they are doing with the biggest customers. If the sales are diversified, that is a good thing for you as an investor. As an investor, you want to know how the company is doing, and if you see they are doing well, then you can do nothing as profits continue to roll in and you collect dividends.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.