Apple has reportedly halved its production target for the iPhone X, a new report claims.
In the three month period starting January, Apple reportedly planned to manufacture 40 million handsets during the quarter. It is now aiming for around 20 million units, based on “slower-than-expected sales in the year-end holiday shopping season” in the U.S., Europe, and China.
While the report doesn’t cite a source for its forecast, it does note that the cuts will likely have a “domino effect” on manufacturers supplying Apple, which is likely to impact them collectively to the tune of billions of dollars.
Since the comparative lack of success of the OLED iPhone X may, the report suggests, cause Apple to be more hesitant about rolling out the pricier OLED displays as quickly as possible, it could also slow down the shift at display manufacturers from LCD to OLED technology.
Apple is expected to maintain a total production target of 30 million units for lower priced models such as the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and the 7.
Supply and demand
Reports of lower-than-expected iPhone X demand came as a bit of a surprise. Originally, it was suggested that demand for the next-gen handset would mean supply of the iPhone X would be severely constrained around launch time, and was unlikely to balance with demand until well into 2018.
At first, it appeared that Apple had simply done a great job of managing demand by getting supply to meet demand to such an extent that next day delivery was achieved for all models of the iPhone X by the end of 2017.
At present, however, most agree that the handset (possibly due to its price) has not sold quite as well as Apple expected. Analysts don’t believe that this is likely to stop Apple from achieving record profits for the last quarter of 2017, though.
Source: Nikkei
