“Taiwan’s tech suppliers will get significantly fewer orders from Apple Inc. in the second half of this year compared with a year ago, no thanks to an ongoing slump in demand for premium smartphones and a lack of groundbreaking features for the upcoming iPhone 7,” Debby Wu and Cheng Ting-Fang report for Nikkei Asian Review, citing “sources familiar with the matter.”
“‘Suppliers are saying that they are getting fewer orders for the second half of this year compared with the year-ago period,’ a source said. ‘The traditional peak season this year will not be able to compare to the past few years,'” Wu and Ting-Fang report. “Another source said that for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the sole supplier for the latest A10 chips used in iPhone 7, its iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 chip shipments for the June to December period will likely shrink to 70%–80% of the level reached in the second half of 2015. Apple is TSMC’s biggest client, accounting for 16% of the Taiwanese company’s revenue.”
Wu and Ting-Fang report, “A person at a major Taiwanese supplier for Apple said iPhone 7’s lack of innovation is to be blamed for the weak demand.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Beyond the anonymous sources making baseless claims about innovation (we guarantee they have no idea what the iPhone 7 will offer in its entirety; judging a device by its rear casing or whatever single data point you have at hand is foolishness), if Apple is TSMC’s biggest client, accounting for 16% of the Taiwanese company’s revenue, then perhaps the problem lies with the other 84%? Did you ever think of that, intrepid Nikkei “reporters?”
Parse this thing from Nikkei Asian Review and you’ll find its foundation is nonexistent. For example: Have Apple’s “iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 chip” orders shrunk at TSMC due to projected lower demand from Apple or because they have other foundries stamping out such chips; information about which Nikkei’s “sources familiar with the matter” are wholly unfamiliar? That question remains unanswered, but, for the purposes of this report*, unimportant.
*This “report” smacks of a plant designed to depress the price of AAPL. Plain and simple. And Nikkei seems to be the preferred place to do it.
By random “coincidence,” AAPL dividends are payable today. Go figure!
Well, heeelllo, $80s! We knew you could get there! (Excuse us while we throw the truck into reverse and gun it!)
SEE ALSO:
Japan’s Nikkei, The Wall Street Journal blow it, get iPhone demand story all wrong – January 16, 2013
Did Apple reduce 4-inch Retina display orders due to improving yields? – January 15, 2013
Analysts: iPhone 5 demand ‘robust;’ ignore the non-news noise – January 15, 2013
Apple iPhone suppliers decline on report orders cut by 50% – January 15, 2013
Apple swoon erases $17 billion from stock market – January 14, 2013
Apple iPhone 5 production cut signaling a new product release? – January 14, 2013
Apple drops to 11-month low on old reports of component cuts – January 14, 2013
The strange math of Apple’s alleged massive iPhone 5 component cuts – January 14, 2013
UBS analysts: Apple iPhone component order reduction ‘old news’ – January 14, 2013
Apple pulls down U.S. futures – January 14, 2013
Apple shares drop below $500 after reported cuts in iPhone 5 parts orders – January 14, 2013