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.

Apple executives on Thursday forecast relatively strong sales growth, a sign the company will recover from a dip in iPhone sales as it rolls out artificial intelligence features.

Apple reported fiscal first-quarter earnings Thursday. Analysts are focused on iPhone momentum following a sluggish start to the year for Apple's stock.