San Francisco — 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.

The tech giant’s sales of apps and services helped profit grow 7 percent from a year ago, even as the company contended with slumping sales in China.

Sales of Apple iPhones dropped at the end of last year, as the tech firm's roll out of new artificial intelligence (AI) features was met with a lukewarm response. Chief executive Tim Cook said the new features helped to drive stronger sales in the countries where they were available, such as the US.