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Apple Slashes iPhone 5 Part Orders Due to Weak Demand

am i the only one that who thinks that they're doing this because of lower demand is all speculation?

My thinking is that this move by apple could be imply that we wont see a 5s, when i say 5s i mean same screen, more or less same components with just minor upgrades? But when apple ordered that huge amount of iphone screen, don't they consider these components the same as for a future 5s? doing this decrease in orders just tells us that apple is planning something different in their next iphone. (possibly a flexible screen or bigger screen type of phone? they did have a pantent for the flexi-screen)

This decision by apple just hints that the next iphone will be different. I've had a difficult time getting an iphone here in our country and i've heard it's been sold out everywhere and with the massive deal apple got with china it seems unlikely that there's less demand. Anyone with me on this?
 
You know I agree to a point. But there are different markets for each new phone. Yes - the "upgrader" who wants new features/better X factor. But then there are new customers who just want that great new phone. Fact is - there's more competition every day in the marketplace. And the ecosystem is key here. Those who are heavily invested in one ecosystem aren't as likely to switch to a new one. Regardless of what phone is introduced. But that being said - I wanted to address some of your bullet points below.

1. This is completely subjective. I own both iOS and Android devices now. And for me (and I doubt I am a lone case) every single app I actually used on the iPhone - I can also you on my Skyrocket. And the quality of those apps are the same.

2. Are you sure about this - Because I know several people who got new Android phones or swaps and had their phones up and running like their previous one is minutes.

3. This is just fud. Yes there's malware - but there are a ton of apps in the Apple App Store that drain battery and hurt performance.

4. You clearly don't really understand when people talk about their phones having freedom that the iPhone doesn't.

5. All subjective. Ease of use is relative to the user. Every phone has a learning curve. The iPhone is easy to use - sure. So is Android. They have a lot of similarities. Some things are more intuitive on one and not on the other and vice versa. But the iPhone doesn't just "work." If it did - there wouldn't be books on how to use them. There wouldn't be lines at the genius bar for simple questions and there wouldn't be the need for people to post the amount of questions they have on how to do something on forums. For BOTH platforms.

6. Maybe in the earlier days of Android. And on cheaper devices. But flagship devices? No. PS - Android updates are also different than iOS. Google updates their apps very regularly. So everyone benefits from new features regularly. They don't NEED to update the entire OS to give new features to their stock apps. I've had my skyrocket for a year now (alongside my iPhone) and both phones got one OS update. The Skyrocket, in addition, got several stock app updates throughout that year.

I do agree - that iOS is better for you. But the bullet points you state are mostly FUD/rhetoric or old regurgitated/typical bashing.

My .02.

nagromme said:
Only the TINIEST segment of the buying public seeks a burst of "excitement" every single year from their phone. I'm one of them... so are many tech forum-goers of course.

But what most people want is the best phone possible, not the maximum amount of change for change's own sake. Change for change's sake is marketing--and that's not what I want driving the design of my phone.

The iPhone 5 would be "more exciting"--to that tiny group of people--if they changed a bunch of superficial stuff. Instead, it's merely far and away the best handheld device that has ever existed, with none of the absolute dealbreaker problems of Android*

* Poorer selection top-quality apps

* No FULL restore of everything when you get a warranty swap or upgrade to a new device

* Malware galore; even safe apps can harm your performance and battery life

* Open source "freedom" that means freedom for the carriers... not for you

* Speed, battery-life and ease of use still second best (despite certain specific features being nice on ANY platform, the big picture is still nicest on iOS)

* Worst of all: devices abandoned (no more updates) LONG before you even finish paying for them!

Android is fine for some... but it comes with HUGE compromises. The compromises in iOS are FAR fewer and smaller for me.
Click to expand...
 
coolspot18 said:
2. Great way to run a company - hemorrhage money. Apple is not in the business for charity, they're here to make money for their shareholders. Lacking in innovation or providing products that the marketplace does not want is not a way to run a company. Apple needs to continue to innovate or else they'll become the Apple of the 90s. In anycase, all your points sound very similar to what people said about Apple in the 90s...
Click to expand...

It's not the greatest way to run a company but 120 billion dollars is a nice club to beat the "Apple is doomed and will be gone in the next three years" people with.
 
For what it's worth, CNBC's Jon Fortt is skeptical about this WSJ report. He tweeted last night:

@CBP_DE @rocco_thestreet I have trouble buying it

@rocco_thestreet @CBP_DE And you better have intimate knowledge of the ENTIRE iPhone supply chain, or it's easy to misinterpret things

I have a hard time believing the WSJ has intimate knowledge of Apple's supply chain, and we have no way of knowing if the conclusion they're drawing (weak demand) is based hard facts.
 
Why did this thread devolve into a "Samsung sucks!" thread again ? Are you guys that much impacted by Apple's competition ? Stop the butthurt, it's sad to read.

Now, for the actual topic, why is anyone surprised by this ? Apple is simply trying to not have the same situation as last year. At the end of Q2 '12, in their April report, Apple said they shipped 35 million units of the iPhone during the quarter (Jan-Mar) :

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/04/24Apple-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results.html
The Company sold 35.1 million iPhones in the quarter
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This was considered pretty good, coming off of a 37 million Q1 '12 for the 4S' introduction quarter. However, Q3 '12 revealed a bit of a hick up with the 35.1 million number, Apple had a very sharp drop in units sold :

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/07/24Apple-Reports-Third-Quarter-Results.html
The Company sold 26.0 million iPhones in the quarter
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This drop, while expected (3rd quarter for the 4S) was sharper than what the company had ever had. The issue was explained by Tim Cook as channel inventory not being depleted from the previous quarter by about 4 million units, the missing units Analysts had predicted (it was considered a miss because analysts were expecting 29 million iPhone units) :

http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieg...ares-fall-as-iphone-pause-begins-live-blog/2/
2:25: Cook now is talking about iPhone sales. Says to compare Q2 and Q3 sales and note that there’s a channel inventory difference. That effects sell through trends.
Click to expand...

Basically, what happened was that Q2's 35 million units shouldn't have been that high, Apple didn't sell 35 million to end users (you know, that argument you guys use against the competition ?) and it hurt them in Q3, where 4 million units were still sitting on shelves, thus lower orders coming in resulting in the sharp decline to 26 million units instead of the expected 29.

Apple doesn't want a repeat of this. It's that simple. So they'll lower orders and probably just artificially lower output of iPhone models for Q2 so that come Q3, there is no "inventory stuffing". No doom and gloom, no "Samsung sucks!" needed. It's all based on last year's performance and the earning's miss of Q3. Relax folks, nothing is amiss.
 
Apple REALLY needs to take a lot more of the market by issuing iPhone "shuffles" and other low-end phones.
 
Time to drop the price apple, to compete with the android army your phone needs to be either Free or less than £100 on contract,

When my choices are £199 + £40 a month for an iPhone 5, or £0 to £69 a month for a HUGE range of android phones, well, im going to look through the android selection, (looking at the 32GB note 2 for £32 a month and a once off payment of £29, huge screen, multitasking, don't need to carry a tablet and a phone)
 
Lesser Evets said:
Apple REALLY needs to take a lot more of the market by issuing iPhone "shuffles" and other low-end phones.
Click to expand...

Apple is going to hit a growth wall if they don't indeed. Right now, they can still ride the wave of the smartphone segment's growth, but that's not sustainable as it will reach a maturity at one point and its growth will greatly diminish. Too much of Apple's revenue is dependant on the iPhone, they can't really afford to lose that big of a growth vector if they want to remain "healthy" in the eyes of investors (the constant need for growth rather than profits in today's investment market).

But again, as I've stated, I don't think this story is about Apple losing ground at all. This is again just not to have the same situation as '12 presented between Q2 and Q3, they will simply limit orders and units in Q2 to prevent the "channel stuffing" that occurred last year.
 
New models with reworked designs and upgraded components are often pushed as part of a cost reduction - Technology moves forward quickly and part costs are always dropping. Apple can release upgrades in small increments at their current price points and reduce manufacture costs.
The vast majority of customers are not rumour/forum readers and are as unaware of release schedules as they are of the internal components.
 
KnightWRX said:
But again, as I've stated, I don't think this story is about Apple losing ground at all. This is again just not to have the same situation as '12 presented between Q2 and Q3, they will simply limit orders and units in Q2 to prevent the "channel stuffing" that occurred last year.
Click to expand...
That's assuming this WSJ report is correct. Are we really supposed to believe they have intimate knowledge of Apple's supply chain?
 
In the end, while the iPhone 5 has these positive points:

1. Excellent brightness and color quality of display.
2. Very good performance speed.
3. Very light and easy to hold.

It's still essentially an enhanced iPhone 4S. I cite the following issues with the iPhone 5.

1. The display is still WAY too small compared to the bigger displays on the Samsung, HTC, LG and Nokia higher-end phones. The text in the iOS Facebook and Twitter apps when running in portrait mode is almost unreadable, in my opinion!
2. The debacle over Apple Maps was a huge PR hit against Apple, showing its arrogance compared to the older Apple Maps app, which used the excellent Google Maps information.
3. The lack of NFC means the phone is not useful in South Korea and Japan, where mobile payment systems are widely used.

Apple right now needs to get NFC onto the iPhone in the next model; if that happens, they could win back marketshare in South Korea and Japan, countries that are very savvy on smartphones. It should be noted that parts of Europe are already starting to use NFC mobile payments, and here in the USA we're about to see rollout of the ISIS mobile payment system, one that is supported by all the major cellphone carriers and many of the largest banks in the country.
 
Nightarchaon said:
Time to drop the price apple, to compete with the android army your phone needs to be either Free or less than £100 on contract,

When my choices are £199 + £40 a month for an iPhone 5, or £0 to £69 a month for a HUGE range of android phones, well, im going to look through the android selection, (looking at the 32GB note 2 for £32 a month and a once off payment of £29, huge screen, multitasking, don't need to carry a tablet and a phone)
Click to expand...

Apple doesn't NEED to drop the price. People are free to vote with their wallets. If you feel the iPhone isn't worth its price and you think an Android phone is better for you - then that's what you should get.
 
nagromme said:
* Worst of all: devices abandoned (no more updates) LONG before you even finish paying for them!
Click to expand...

I had to laugh at this.. My iPhone 3g became almost a paperweight after iOS 4.0 made is unusable slightly less than 12 months after I bought it.. Even a simple thing like opening an app made any music playing stutter like hell..

Due to things like this, I am very wary of buying any more iPhones (I haven't..) and the iPhone 5 doesn't do it for me, it's cool to look at, lightweight but i'm not buying something that scratches in my pocket, doesn't have NFC and has such expensive connectors..

Also, other manufacturers are catching up in hardware quality, I have a Sony Xperia P (same screen size as the iphone 5) and it's great, love it, build quality is really great. quality materials etc.

Similarly, softwarewise, android has evolved into something very close to iOs in usability, and better in some ways and, of course, worse in others: it's still not quite so intuitive at first but ultimately far more flexible. All the apps I want are now available for android and are indistinguishable from their iOS equivalents.

iOs is looking very old fashioned (despite still being very intuitive for beginners), needs a total UI re-design IMO. Windows 8 is superb, looks very fresh and great on the HTC & Nokia I tried it on.

Bottom line is, Apple is not differentiating themselves enough to justify the huge price difference (in my opinion..)
 
Well, it somehow contradicts the 4th quarter record sales announced by AT&T in the U.S. and by Apple in the Chinese market. But 2013 is a different story for sure.

We'll have to wait and see what happens on January 23rd.
 
Rogifan said:
That's assuming this WSJ report is correct. Are we really supposed to believe they have intimate knowledge of Apple's supply chain?
Click to expand...

Again, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't correct, based, again, on last year's performance. Apple doesn't want a repeat of their first earning's miss in close to a decade due to a bunch of unsold iPhones (since they report shipped units, not end-user sales for inventory outside their own retail presence).

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Mike MA said:
Well, it somehow contradicts the 4th quarter record sales announced by AT&T in the U.S. and by Apple in the Chinese market. But 2013 is a different story for sure.

We'll have to wait and see what happens on January 23rd.
Click to expand...

It contradicts nothing since the WSJ's report is about the upcoming quarter (Jan-Mar), not the one that just ended.

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Popeye206 said:
Seems like this is out of no where.... Makes no sense. I'm guessing this will be debunked soon.
Click to expand...

It makes sense to me and it would to you to if you remember last year's iPhone performance during Q2 and Q3.
 
I really blame the stupid elongated screen. Say what you want about aspect ratios, being able to reach your thumb to the screen corners, the public does not care. They want bigger screen phones and Android manufacturers are giving it to them.

I think Apple will finally break from of this model and release different sized iPhones next release. I expect they'll release a 3.5", 4", and 4.8". They offer different sized Macs and iPods- christ, how many different iPods they've had. They change the Nano design every year just for the sake of changing it. There's no valuable reason they only release a one size fits all iPhone, except because back in the day Steve Jobs wanted it to be that way.

Screw the developers. They will adjust their apps because they have to.
 
This thread is not very surprising to me. Many posters will cheer/champion stories of success and try like hell to debunk/rationalize anything negative. Even if the story itself ISN'T negative. Like you said - this "news" can easily be explained. It's not foreboding. At least not for those paying attention. Which seems to be fewer and fewer every day...


KnightWRX said:
Again, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't correct, based, again, on last year's performance. Apple doesn't want a repeat of their first earning's miss in close to a decade due to a bunch of unsold iPhones (since they report shipped units, not end-user sales for inventory outside their own retail presence).

----------



It contradicts nothing since the WSJ's report is about the upcoming quarter (Jan-Mar), not the one that just ended.

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It makes sense to me and it would to you to if you remember last year's iPhone performance during Q2 and Q3.
Click to expand...
 
It seems to me there could be many factors for the cut, if it is even true. Perhaps a new phone is on the way with the bigger than life screen people on this site seem to want. BTW, what is read on this site is not indicative of the population as a whole. Shocker, I'm sure.
 
I honestly believe this is because the iPhone 4 and 4S are so good that most people don't feel a need to upgrade. I'm still very happy with my 4S, and it still looks like new.
 
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