The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has slashed component orders for the iPhone 5 this quarter, responding to weaker-than-expected demand.
Apple's orders for iPhone 5 screens for the January-March quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had previously planned to order, two of the people said.
The Cupertino, Calif., company has also cut orders for components other than screens, according to one of the people.
Apple notified the suppliers of the order cut last month, the people said.
There have been reports that Apple is looking to launch its next-generation iPhone in the middle of this year as part of a broader effort to shorten its product update cycles. Apple is reportedly also toying with other changes such as a cheaper version of the iPhone in order to help the company slow the momentum of Android and its leading manufacturers Samsung.
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It is not unusual for demand, and thus Apple's component orders, to wane in the lead-up to hardware updates, but the iPhone 5 is just four months old, and the slashing of production at this stage of the device's lifecycle is sure to cause concern for the company, its investors, and others closely watching Apple's performance.
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Top Rated Comments
I usually try to judge these things based on anecdotal evidence, and from that perspective the iPhone 5 is a flop. Of course it depends on my location, place of work and a billion other factors, but in a modern busy city you see a lot of random people with their phones and occasionally you notice one.
I don't tend to see a lot of iPhone 5s around.
Personally, I'm not tempted to buy one, either. The iPhone today does basically the same things the iPhone 4 did, just faster. The iPhone 4 was as big of a shake-up as the iPhone's had since launch (and even then it was a new case and faster internals).
There hasn't been anything revolutionary. Nothing that really pushes the device to the next level or provides something radically different. NFC could do that, but in that case it's less about physically sticking it in to the phone and more about building up the infrastructure; unfortunately Apple doesn't seem to be doing anything there, and they don't seem to be doing anything else either.
As always, would love to be wrong, hope they have something really great. Unfortunately when you build your brand on innovative ideas, people expect you to keep delivering. When those ideas run out your brand will just lose steam.
iPhone 5S rumors (which NEEDS to happen, annual hardware updates for your NUMBER ONE product line is inexcusable), iPhone 5 initial issues with scuffing and Wifi, iOS 6 being stale and the maps fiasco, not to mention lack of jailbreak.
I LOVE Apple products, but ever since the iPhone 4S's release I've started to get bored and watch Apple be surpassed by even WP8 in some areas.
They need to lock down contracts in China and other areas of the world. They really only dominate the US market.
And the WSJ doesn't know this for sure, I'll wait to see the financials for the quarter before making judgement. Isn't it common for post-holiday shipment cuts? People surely don't buy in January like they do in December.