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.

The company has heavily advertised AI features since the latest iPhones were released in September.

Apple reported $18.5 billion in sales in greater China last quarter, comfortably below consensus estimates of $20.9 billion.

Sales of Apple iPhones dropped 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.