Shane Cole
A one-off report out of the Far East on Thursday speculated that Apple has cut production orders for its mid-range iPhone 5c by as much as 50 percent due to slack demand.
The report, from Chinese website C Technology, states that Apple's production order for the iPhone 5c has recently been cut from 300,000 units per day to 150,000 units per day — or nearly 5 million units per month.
No other sources corroborated the cuts, and it seems unlikely that Apple — in possession of a wealth of customer demographic and sales data collected over decades of operation — would miss sales projections so badly that such a dramatic production slowdown would be required.
Additionally, the website has a spotty record when it comes to accuracy and original reporting. While it has published some accurate images of prerelease hardware in the past, many of the photos are sourced from Chinese microblogging service Sina Weibo or larger Chinese technology blogs.
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4 Comments
It’s not a new phone. Not sure what people expect, given that it’s last year’s phone, which has always sold considerably fewer than this year’s phone
“Not selling as well as we expect,” to an analyst means “not selling 50% of all iPhones,” which was ludicrous bull-honkey from the get-go.
The 5c is one ugly duckling, and Apple isn't beyond releasing the occasional dud. The 4S was a top seller last year. If the 5c is flailing, it's definitely bad news.
Utterly ludicrous nonsense. It’s not failing, nor would “failure” be “bad news”.
NEWS FLASH: “a” not “the”.
I'm sure there's always a point at which Apple moves from "let's make the new thing as fast as we can" to "let's pull back production to a level at which supply will = demand over the long haul." Sometimes that may necessitate a 50% drop in production; sometimes it won't. "Shortfalls of sales" aren't real news unless Apple announces write-offs of inventory, and this is not that.