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Apple Slashes iPhone 5 Part Orders Due to Weak Demand

Apple just updated just about every product in their lineup and introduced the hot-selling iPad mini which manages to sell well despite complaints it is overpriced.

I expect (hope?) the earnings call is good news despite lowered quantity of iPhone 5 parts. For years now, we have been conditioned to expect "more more more" for all things Apple. More profits. More market share. More sales. I'm not sure what "less" means right now but I'm sure (at least I hope) it's not time for AAPL stockholders to head for the exits.
 
Mark Booth said:
While I wouldn't describe the iPhone 5 as the "s" word, I would ABSOLUTELY describe it as inferior in quality of construction and inferior in quality of usefulness compared to the iPhone 4S.

For the first time in the evolution of the iPhone, Apple went BACKWARDS. Both in quality of the hardware/construction, and in the quality of one of the most important apps on the phone (yes, Maps).

Lots of you will disagree. But the reality is in the numbers. Apple's iPhone 5 is going to be the first iPhone that didn't sell as well as the one before it.

Mark
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That's exactly I was wanting express.
 
KnightWRX said:
Tim Cook said the rumors had little or no impact (more than usual) on sales, and firmly admitted that Apple had simply overshipped units in Q2, resulting in the miss in Q3 because of overprovisionned inventory. Controlling part orders and inventory seems to be a reaction to this situtation more than to rampant "refresh" rumors (which we've had very little of actually at this point).

Don't rewrite history, Apple is guilty of reporting "Shipped units" rather than "Sold units" in their financials, same as everyone else, don't try to dance around that issue (I don't know if you're one of the guys who constantly accuses Samsung/Motorola/HTC/Sony/et al. to report shipped vs sold, but now you know Apple does it too, straight from Tim).
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Tim said that was some of the impact, but that the rumors were part of it, too. From what I recall he said that explained about 1.5 million of the drop from 35 million in Q2 to 26 million in Q3. Shipped vs. sold comes into play because revenue recognition rules are the same for everyone. Apple counts units shipped to carriers that the carriers are committed to buy, but doesn't count in-store sales until they are actually sold to the end user. Both count as "sold" for revenue purposes.

Anyway, my post wasn't about shipped vs. sold. It was about how the iPhone is showing seasonality, which it clearly is (going from 33.5 to 27.5 is still evidence of seasonality). If the pattern is one of big pops at introduction followed by leveling off and declines, then one method of driving sales is to have more introductions and more big pops. A 9 month cycle may well be in iPhone's future, and a 6 month cycle may well be in iPad's.
 
ctdonath said:
Floppy disk drives, both 3.5 & 5.25".
Parallel "Centronics" printer interfaces.
25- and 9-pin RS-232.
Token-ring.
PS/2 keyboard & mouse plugs. (That's IBM PS/2 from decades past, kids, not PlayStation 2)
PCMCIA cards..
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Absolutely incredibly poor analogy! I don't drag my old Centronics printer around to connect it to my car, my stereo, and my boombox.

A closer analogy would be changing the power connector on a 120-volt lamp and then telling the customer he needs to buy an additional adapter to plug the lamp into the wall.

The 30-pin connector had become ubiquitous (that means "found everywhere"). Dropping the 30-pin connector was an incredibly stupid decision, one that Apple will never fully recover from.

Mark
 
My guess is they will make a 4.7ish iPhone 6. The market is demanding larger phones, however, they will continue to make their smaller form factor while introducing the larger.

A lot of my friends have ditched the iPhone for larger screens. They need to follow the market while continuing to cater to the smaller hands of some people.

This is what happens when you barely update your phone after making everyone wait a year. Not to mention all the issues with the 5 like coming pre-scratched, purple haze, etc etc.

They need a massive overhaul of the OS too. It hasnt changed much visually since the start, and you still cant customize it.
 
hopefully this has given apple the kick up the behind that it needs to sort its OS out. the phone is fantastic, but man the OS is old and when you compare it to its desktop counterpart, or competitors its quite quite a piece of history instead of the future
 
KnightWRX said:
Just be honest. You've dragged it on a table, knocked it on the desk, chipped a corner while it was in your pocket and you ran into something. Plenty of way to scuff a phone without dropping it (and dropping it is common enough, it's a phone).

Phones don't just scuff from contact with with air. All you and your "tons of people" are doing is marring the actual issue : scuffed phones from the factory. That was the problem. Now thanks to some posters who just can't admit they damage their phones (seriously, not like someone really has to try with a mobile device), the issue has been muddied to some "this finish is not Oxygen resistant! :eek:" instead.

Ridiculous. The finish on my phone is perfect, on the spots where I haven't dinged it on anything yet.
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Thanks for wasting my time with your nonsense replies.
 
Macclone said:
And Adroid devices all have the same look and feel that they stole from Apple. So your point is? Let me guess, you call the vendor and carrier crapware a good thing? No, thanks.
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All Android devices have the look and feel as an iPhone? If you mean it's more or less rectangular, with a touch screen, carry a pair of cameras and one or more physical buttons you're correct, but if you suggest they beside that all look like an iPhone I gotta ask what you're smoking...
 
A stale OS that is getting bad press feedback along with a safe rather than innovative design are starting to have an effect on Apple but only short term. Once they release the 5S with different colours, Jonny Ive influenced iOS and better screen you will see sales surge like never before.
 
bbplayer5 said:
My guess is they will make a 4.7ish iPhone 6. The market is demanding larger phones, however, they will continue to make their smaller form factor while introducing the larger.

A lot of my friends have ditched the iPhone for larger screens. They need to follow the market while continuing to cater to the smaller hands of some people.
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And me and all of my friends couldn't care less about a larger screen. That's a market I'm happy to see left to Android. Every time I see some Android fanboy with a jumbo-sized phone in a case on his belt, all I can think about is "what a dork!" "Hey, buddy, get a pocket protector to go with that thing!"

Apple won't make a wider iPhone.

Mark
 
corvus32 said:
Apple needs to release multiple configurations of iPhones and iPads each year with limited software support for six to eight months and none afterwards. That's what their competitors do, and people seem to just love it. Poor battery life wouldn't hurt either.
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I bet you have never owned an Android phone, right? At least not the past 2 years. You shouldn't believe what all Android haters are trolling about :).
 
KPOM said:
Tim said that was some of the impact, but that the rumors were part of it, too. From what I recall he said that explained about 1.5 million of the drop from 35 million in Q2 to 26 million in Q3. Shipped vs. sold comes into play because revenue recognition rules are the same for everyone. Apple counts units shipped to carriers that the carriers are committed to buy, but doesn't count in-store sales until they are actually sold to the end user. Both count as "sold" for revenue purposes.

Anyway, my post wasn't about shipped vs. sold. It was about how the iPhone is showing seasonality, which it clearly is (going from 33.5 to 27.5 is still evidence of seasonality). If the pattern is one of big pops at introduction followed by leveling off and declines, then one method of driving sales is to have more introductions and more big pops. A 9 month cycle may well be in iPhone's future, and a 6 month cycle may well be in iPad's.
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The count was 4 million units, kdarling had found the actual quote from Tim Cook rather than the "interpretations" I can find online. And read the Forbes piece I linked to, they are clear from their conference call notes that Tim underplays the rumors.

He has no reason to when he has a much more rational explanation.
 
There is an article on BGR calling into doubt the numbers behind this story and the article points out that WSJ has pulled the 65 million number off their version of the story. More at BGR...
 
jrswizzle said:
I have a question for everyone:

If we are all for competition (which I'd assume the smart ones are), why is it that most of you clamor for Apple and iOS to be more like Google, Android and other Android handset makers? What is the point in making the two more like each other?

Some people prefer customization and huge screens (which have pros and cons).

Others prefer simplicity, efficiency and smaller screens (which have pros and cons).

This is why both OSes exist and why these smartphone makers make the phones they do the way they do. Each has its own strategy and I prefer they keep them separate.

Obviously both are doing well, selling 10s of millions of devices each year. As a consumer base, lets try to keep our fickleness to a minimum - the iPhone 5 was arguably the biggest single upgrade in the history of iPhones. iOS 6 may have been somewhat disappointing, but they are two separate releases.

With a new design (thinner, lighter, larger screen - which has the same dimensions as the Razr HD btw), more than double the CPU speed, double he graphics power, same PPI - but new screen tech gives the 5 the best mobile display as far as color reproduction in the biz, power-efficient LTE, all with the same 10+ hour battery life (which is tops in the industry - albeit in a much smaller form than competition) - the iPhone 5 is every bit a competitor to the Galaxy S3, One X, Lumia 920, etc. They are all flagship phones - and all great in their own rite....its up to the consumer to decide which approach is right for HIM/HER - not for everyone else.

So before you say "all my friends have Android so it must be better" - remember, your circle of friends represents a terribly small sample of the larger public - and generally we align ourselves with friends who think similarly to ourselves.
Click to expand...

Apple has a problem when many of us have

Google maps
Gmail app
YouTube
Google calendar
Google search

Basically apple is getting the short end of the stick
 
bartonpaul said:
Personally I think AT&T is somewhat to blame because in years past when the new iphone came out as long as you has your old one close to a year they would let you upgrade but now they are sticking to the 18 months to upgrade. That takes out millions of folks that would like to upgrade like myself but are now not eligible. I need to wait until May or pay an additional $250 above the price of the phone, same with my daughters and wife. There is no way we are spending an extra $1000 to upgrade all 4 of us. If AT&T did it that same as in the past, we were buyers when the phone came out several months ago.
Click to expand...

The world: 7 billion
North America: 530 million
USA: 311 million
AT&T subscribers: 95 million

See where I am going?




Michael
 
Let's just go full tin foil hat.

Apple release the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 knowing it would be a complete disaster and lower the bar of expectations so when the iPhone 6 and iOS 7 was introduced - they would be magical, revolutionary and "Apple is BACK people!!!!!" :eek:
 
samcraig said:
Are you going to sincerely state that the scratches on your phone magically appeared without any interference from you or another object?
Click to expand...

We can both see where he's coming from. Sure - scratches and damages don't appear without fault. But I and many others believe these scratches and imperfections happy way too easily.

Anodising aluminium is such a fundamental error and design flaw. I have no sympathy for people who dropped their iPhone 4/S and their screens suffered, they clearly weren't looking after their devices. But we should be at least be able to use our iPhones 5 without them being so EASILY damaged from daily uses.
 
JoeG4 said:
The ip4 costs $450
the 4s costs $550
the 5 costs $650.

What exactly is cheap about any of those? I think a cheap iPhone would start at $299 unlocked.
Click to expand...

Apple is getting too expensive!!! Compare it to the nexus 4 which has better hardware and software and is way cheaper!!

Apple thinks we are all rich... they overprice their products too much!
 
bbplayer5 said:
My guess is they will make a 4.7ish iPhone 6. The market is demanding larger phones
Click to expand...

"Anecdotes prevail," the market has spoken!! That's not to say there aren't some preferring a larger form factor in their phones, but do not for a moment think it's a trend that is going to become the norm, it's just a segment of the market, and it's not currently dominant (just loud and obnoxious on forums like this) and I personally don't think it ever will dominate (but that's something we'll have to wait to see).

I for one will never buy a phone that is larger than the iPhone, but I would buy a smaller version of the iPhone because portability to me reigns supreme.

As for Apple producing a larger version of the iPhone, they are probably the only company that could actually make one that doesn't look so FUGLY.
 
Which is why they aren't accelerating upgrades anymore

Rogifan said:
But AT&T reported record sales for the quarter. :confused:
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AT&T found people will still stay their customers anyway so why give accelerated upgrades which is just money out of their pocket? Record sales are just phone sales numbers that could have been greater but only by sacrificing profit in the here and now.

There are millions of people skipping the 5 because they are still not eligible for the full upgrade price - I won't be til next June - why would I wast that upgrade on a 5? It is the first iPhone model I won't have and it is purely due to the AT&T upgrade cycle.
 
Sensamic said:
Apple is getting too expensive!!! Compare it to the nexus 4 which has better hardware and software and is way cheaper!!

Apple thinks we are all rich... they overprice their products too much!
Click to expand...

The Nexus 4 lacks LTE.
 
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