iPhone 5 Demand Weakens, Apple Cuts Screen Orders

News
By Zak Islam
published

Orders for other components of the latest Apple smartphone also reduced.

Apple is said to have cut orders of the iPhone 5 screens by around 50 percent last month due to the demand of the device weakening.

The technology giant reduced its orders last month for iPhone 5 screens for the first quarter of 2013 by around half its original target, sources told The Wall Street Journal. It also purportedly cut orders for other screen sizes, as well as reducing orders for other components.

During December, UBS analyst Steven Milunovich reduced his iPhone sales estimates for the March, June, and September 2013 quarters by 5 million units each quarter. He believes the company won't experience the same success it did during 2012.

In related news, Apple is suffering its largest share price drop in four years.

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Zak Islam
29 Comments Comment from the forums
  • cats_Paw
    Well, it had to happen eventually...
    I dont think this would surprise anyone.
    Reply
  • JJ1217
    BAHAHAHAHAHAHA... Apple is so funny.
    Reply
  • Apple seemed to be regaining Market share in the US, but in Europe its sales are suffering vs Android.

    This is the opportunity Microsoft have been waiting for, can they capatilize on it? I have a Lumia 920 and everybody who has seen it, except for die hard Apple fans (who would buy a lump coal for $600 if it said Apple on it), have been impressed.
    Reply
  • dmuir
    I'm calling shenanigans. Stock manipulation plain and simple.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/01/15/did-the-wsj-get-punkd-on-apple-or-is-it-rotten-to-the-core/
    Reply
  • Firion87
    As Nelson from The Simpsons would say and point: "HaHa!!!"
    Reply
  • fuzzion
    Apple lost its niche market, that was innovative phones combined with design and intelligent OS. In an ironic twist of faith, lets hope the chinese market can save AAPL.
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    Oh, how the mighty have fallen
    ...
    Apple fans laughed at Microsoft as they reduced their dominance, now it is happening to them it isn't quite as funny is it?
    Reply
  • TheBigTroll
    im guessing people who want a iphone already have a iphone. that this point there isnt much point of upgrading
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    Get with it WSJ and Tom's... Cutting current orders says nothing about previous orders. It's common practice for companies to front-load orders for materials and create an internal surplus. This is especially common after the Q4 of the fiscal year where a company sets out to max its spending for the year so as not to negatively impact Q1 of the next fiscal year. I'm saying all of this as a general Apple-disliker. But these orders say nothing about actual demand for the device--it's just an inferred conclusion from Tom's. Many analysts (both tech. and financial) in the industry have de-bunked this already.
    Reply
  • blakbird24
    There is a very interesting parallel that has been ongoing for years, a parallel that should make most reasonable human beings stop and think. Apple and Lance Armstrong. Examining the trajectories of these two entities should make us realize how shitty we really are. Modern media has done everything in it's power to turn every single story into an epic. We cheer the rise of a hero...but we find even more satisfaction in the fall of that same hero. Just as Lance Armstrong was built up to be this impossibly great athlete, Apple was inflated to levels never substantiated. Apple's "creator" attained god-like status when in reality he was an a-hole who's real talent was marketing. Projected sales numbers placed at unattainable levels then required the doctoring of the "actual" numbers...all of this led to a massive bubble. As we all know painfully well, bubbles burst. Just as Lance is experiencing his fall from glory, Apple is slowly sinking. Fans don't understand what's going on, just as non-fans couldn't understand the uncontrolled ascension. It doesn't make any sense because it shouldn't have happened in the first place. But now the paper hero is exposed, and the cycle will begin again. All the while the media tycoons rake in the profits, and we just follow, ready to gobble up the next epic they create.
    Reply