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
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
4 responses to “Apple may have chopped iPhone X production in half”
Well I’m not surprised. At $1830, if I hadn’t received one as a gift, I wouldn’t of bought one.
It’s too expensive and people have learned to not trust 1st gen products from Apple.
I bought it and I have to say I’m really happy with it. It’s incredibly fast, and as a developer, I’m looking forward to learn more about ARKit and some other exciting features. But yes, ordinary users should probably go for iPhone 8.
Glad you enjoy it, but I’m still distrustful of 1st gen devices. I’ll give two reasons why:
I bought the first-gen MacBook Pro 2016 as well as the 1st Gen of the new Apple TV that has the touch remote. In both instances, I felt like I was punished for being an early adopter.
The MBP battery life and performance with 4K video editing was actually the same as…or worse than…my previous MBP. I’m lucky to get more than 2 hours of battery life with regular usage. Lots of bugs early on and it took quite awhile for Touch Bar support from other 3rd party developers to be meaningful, which is frustrating given that was the device’s primary selling point. So, I felt punished for early adoption on that purchase. If I would have bought the 2017 model, I would have had the option to upgrade to more powerful components and would have started off with much more meaningful Touch Bar support, rather than waiting more than a year for it.
As for the Apple TV I own, it has hardware in it that is fully capable of 4K video playback. But Apple is not unlocking that for people who own the same model as I do. Instead, they’re saying I must buy an new one just for them to unlock that feature. So…again…punished for early adoption, despite having a device that could very easily stream 4K back without issue. I have to drop $200 just to have them unlock a codec? Terrible!