Apple reportedly slashes iPhone X production
A second report in as many days says Apple has halved the number of $999 iPhone X phones it aims to produce in the first three months of the year.
- Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
The arrival of Apple's iPhone X was met with the typical late-night preorders and lines outside stores when it was first released, but reports suggest demand has fallen short of the company's expectations.
The mystery of the iPhone X's success just got cloudier.
Apple has cut orders for parts used in its iPhone X by 60 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the iPhone supply chain. Another person familiar with Apple's production goals said the gadget giant slashed its output targets to 20 million iPhone X units in the first three months of the year, down from about 40 million, according to the report.
It's the latest report to cast a shadow over the iPhone X, the company's most expensive phone yet. It follows a Monday report from Nikkei, which didn't cite a source, that Apple had notified suppliers it was cutting its iPhone X production target in half, to 20 million in the first quarter. A week earlier, an analyst predicted Apple would kill off the iPhone X when the second-generation model hits the market later this year.
Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The reports come the same week Apple is slated to give its first accounting of how the $999 (£999, AU$1,579) iPhone X has fared. Thursday, Apple will report its financial performance for the final three months of last year, the same quarter that included the launch of the iPhone X and the holiday-buying season.
Apple touted the iPhone X as a significant reinvention of the iPhone a decade after the first edition of the product was introduced. Priced higher than any other iPhone to date, the device introduced a nearly edge-to-edge screen and technology that lets users unlock the device with a face scan. The iPhone is crucial to Apple's business, but the high price of the newest model, as well as the removal of the familiar home button, may have given some consumers pause.