Two of Apple's largest suppliers have reported healthy jumps in monthly revenue, suggesting fears of weak iPhone demand may be overblown (via Bloomberg).
Asian firms TSMC and Foxconn (Hon Hai) both posted a 5.6 percent rise in November sales, reversing a recent trend of Apple suppliers reducing production or revenue outlooks to reflect lowering demand for Apple's smartphones.
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Foxconn posted NT$601.4 billion ($19.5 billion) in revenue, a record for the month of November, which puts the iPhone assembler on track for its fastest pace of annual growth in years.
TSMC, maker of Apple's system-on-chips like the A12 processor, reported revenue of $3.1 billion, a lower figure than the previous month but still considered strong overall. Executives at the chipmaker have said they expect demand for premium devices to help offset lethargy in the crypto-mining market, which it has heavily invested in.
Apple accounts for close to half of main iPhone-assembler Hon Hai's revenue and about a fifth of TSMC's, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The figures offer something of a riposte to the narrative that sales of Apple's iPhone XR and XS have been weaker than expected. For example, last week it was reported that Apple moved marketing staff off other projects to focus on bolstering sales of the latest iPhone lineup in late October.
Apple's next earnings call is in January, when investors will get an idea of how the company did over the holiday season, although Apple recently stopped reporting real unit numbers for its major product categories, so investors will have to rely on revenue and gross margin figures alone to assess performance.
Top Rated Comments
Two of Apple's largest suppliers have reported healthy jumps in monthly revenue, suggesting fears of weak iPhone demand may be overblown.
You mean TSMC who makes the microchips for almost everything including all of AMD's GPU's, all of NVIDIA's GPU's most of the Qualcomm stuff and even Huewei's CPU's for their phones had a strong November when there is already a backlog of 6 months to get anything fabbed there? oh my god.Also is that the same Foxconn that assembles all the Amazon devices, Apple iPads, Google Chromecasts, all the Microsoft Surfaces, the XBOX the Nintendo Switch and the PS4? - Damn you'd think with lowered iPhone sales they'd be basically on the street begging for business.
Not quite.
This is an increase over last year's sales. It's holiday period 2017 vs holiday period 2018.It's a very well known fact that demand picks up for the holidays. Considering that we probably had a low baseline this year (due to demand being lower than expected), when it picked up it really showed (even if probably not to previous years' levels).
But then again, who knows.
You mean TSMC who makes the microchips for almost everything including all of AMD's CPU's, all of NVIDIA's GPU's most of the Qualcomm stuff and even Huewei's CPU's for their phones had a strong November when there is already a backlog of 6 months to get anything fabbed there? oh my god.
Don't speak logic here, it's not appreciated! Some people are under the assumption TSMC only makes iPhone chips or something.Also is that the same Foxconn that assembles all the Amazon devices, Apple iPads, Google Chromecasts, all the Microsoft Surfaces, the XBOX the Nintendo Switch and the PS4? - Damn you'd think with lowered iPhone sales they'd be basically on the street begging for business.
* iPhone released
* MacRumors: worst new iPhone ever, I liked my [insert iPhone from 3 years ago]. Tim Cook must resign!
* Reports of limited stock
* MacRumors: bash Apple for creating artificial demand
* Apple has enough stock and winds down the initial production rush
* News reports unnamed sources saying Apple has lowered orders due to low demand
* MacRumors: Price too high, Tim Cook must resign!
* Suppliers report good numbers
* MacRumors: Probably only because [other device from company x] is selling a lot this year.
* New year comes, news again reports unnamed sources saying Apple has lowered orders due to low demand
* MacRumors: Apple has no more innovation, Tim Cook must resign!
* Apple reports good numbers
* MacRumors: Grumble grumble
And Repeat every year. It's rather hilarious.