“Apple has begun drawing down build plans for its current iPhone models, as sales begin to ease in anticipation of a new sixth-generation model expected to launch later this year,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“Analyst Shaw Wu with Sterne Agee said in a note to investors on Tuesday that he has found in his checks with suppliers that Apple has reduced iPhone orders by between 20 and 25 percent from the 35.1 million units the company shipped in the March quarter,” Hughes reports. “‘From our understanding, the reason for the reduction is not demand related but rather due to the upcoming 6th generation iPhone refresh likely in the September-October timeframe,’ Wu wrote. ‘It appears AAPL is opting to be conservative with its suppliers to factor in a potential 2-quarter pause ahead of the refresh and also to manage inventory.'”
Hughes reports, “Wu noted that Wall Street consensus last year ‘grossly underestimated the impact of a pause and inventory drawdown ahead of the iPhone 4S.’ He believes investor expectations should be drawn in for the June quarter as well as the following September quarter. But while he doesn’t expect a significant upside for iPhone sales in the coming quarters, Wu does believe the iPad has the potential to impress investors. Specifically, he has heard that Apple has increased build plans for its third-generation tablet.”
Read more in the full article here.
Oh God the brokers will spin this for all it’s worth. Wu doesn’t say when the delivery was for? Could be after the new one had been released. Not that wall st will care.
“Nice” way of putting it: “orders ‘significantly’ reduced”, instead of saying “Apple is vigorously ramping up production of an as yet unspecified new device, believed by many to be the soon-to-be-released iPhone 5”.
June/July launch.
Damn, how many times in the past 5 years has Shaw Wu switched employers? Does he suck as an analyst that bad!?
In the last 8 years that I’ve been following Apple/AAPL Wu has changed employers once.
Really? I count at least 3 times.
So now a product released every year can only have a six month sell. Shaw Wu is full of himself. We’ll find out July 24 and hopefully, Wu will be forced to eat his words. But then again, Huberty is still spewing her garbage after having never been right.
Since when does an apple product get drawn down five months in advance?
Why draw down a product that in all likelihood will become the second tier product in the new line up?.
The better question is why was the 4S late?
2008 iPhone 3G June launch
2009 iPhone 3GS June launch
2010 iPhone 4 July launch
Did it have to wait for iOS5? Both came out at the same time.
The cloud business was also critical so these factors meant the release of the phone was pushed back.
Apple purposely wanted to move new phone release date to Q4 to make biggest sales possible. New hottest device in the hottest holiday season gives the best sales. If so, they will keep it this way; lets see.
Thats just plain silly. You don’t max sales in any quarter that must ramp up production from zero. Also, there were 14 weeks in that quarter. The 4S was only available for 13.
Excellent question. Suspect that they were screwing around with Siri longer than anticipated. Also may have needed to overcome supplier shortfalls with chips, functionality, etc..
Might as well kiss this current share price goodbye. There’s going to be a concerted effort to drive Apple shares down yet again before earnings. It just never stops. The median price target must be around $650 and Apple seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Go figure.
A nice low price before the new iPhone would be a great opportunity to buy.