“Investors are always dealing with incomplete information when making investment decisions,” Bill Shamblin writes for Seeking Alpha. “For example, today’s report from the Wall Street Journal that Apple has significantly reduced orders of iPhone 5 screens, and some components for – March quarter seems to be evidence of soft demand for the company’s newest smartphone.”
“The knee-jerk reaction of some investors to this news might be to decide that Apple’s run in the smartphone space is over and cash in their shares,” Shamblin writes. “Here’s the problem: No one outside of Apple knows why these production cuts were made.”
MacDailyNews Take: What was that we wrote at 8:40am Eastern this morning? Oh, yeah:
The fact is that nobody outside the top levels of Apple Inc. really knows what’s happening inside Apple Inc. Without knowing when the next iPhone is coming or what Apple’s real plans are, attributing shifts in component orders to “slowing demand” or some other concoction is disingenuous, at the least, and criminal, at the most.
Shamblin writes, “A new iPhone model, perhaps with a new form factor (think Macbook Air vs. Macbook Pro), allows segmentation of a maturing market, helps to better meet customer demand, and increases the frequency of iPhone introductions and thus, eliminates the increasing problems of the iPhone purchase anticipation lag… A reduction in iPhone 5 screen production may be an indication that the company believes an increase in iPhone screen size is a necessary move for emerging markets – again, explaining the decreases in iPhone 5 screen production.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Could be a new iPhone. Could be a seasonal decline in iPod touch units (same screen as iPhone 5). Could be just about anything. But, why would “emerging markets” force an increase in iPhone screen size?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]