“Apple’s iPhone X is likely to be discontinued this year if earnings from one of the company’s top suppliers is anything to go by, according to an analyst,” Arjun Kharpal reports for CNBC. “Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, or TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor foundry company, revised its full-year revenue target to the low end of its forecast. Shares in the company closed 6.3 percent lower on Friday.”
“One of the biggest concerns for Neil Campling, the co-head of the global thematic group focusing on technology at Mirabaud Securities, is the oversupply of chips,” Kharpal reports. “TSMC’s record inventory levels are due to Apple not buying components for any future iPhone X models, suggesting the device will be killed off this year, Campling said. ‘With the declines in iPhone X orders and the inventory issue at TSMC at record highs, which basically reflect a need to burn off inventory. Why? Because the iPhone X is dead,’ Campling wrote in his note.”
“He clarified that any old inventory of iPhone X models will still be on sale, but no new ones will be produced,” Kharpal reports. “The iPhone X has had a rocky road to market. It was delayed after being announced last year, and a recent report from the Nikkei suggested Apple had cut its production targets for the phone… In January, noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, said the iPhone X could be canceled in the summer.”
“Campling said any cancelation of the iPhone X will have a big impact on AMS. The chipmaker could see as much as a 35 percent quarter-on-quarter decline in revenue in the second quarter, worse than the expected 18 percent reduction,” Kharpal reports. “‘If the iPhone X is being killed off then you may go from a production of 12 million in Q1 to potentially zero in Q2, then that is a $60 million hit alone (to revenues),’ Campling said in a note.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: And then mass production of the trio of new iPhone models begins and suppliers surge along with Apple.
Especially with AMS AG, we strongly assume that at least two of Apple’s next-gen iPhones, and new iPad Pro models will have TrueDepth Camera systems on board, so keep that in mind if AMS shares get killed on Q2 results.
SEE ALSO:
Morgan Stanley: Apple stock may fall on ‘materially’ weaker iPhone sales – April 20, 2018
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple to unveil two 6.1-inch LCD iPhones this year; one budget-priced at just $550, another with dual-SIM capability – April 18, 2018
Apple’s iPhone captured 86% of global handset profits in Q417; iPhone X alone took 35% of global handset profits – April 17, 2018
Bernstein: Ams AG is biggest winner in Apple’s TrueDepth Camera system – April 10, 2018
Apple’s iPhone X is the UK’s most popular smartphone – April 9, 2018
Apple to release Q218 earnings, webcast live conference call on May 1st – April 3, 2018
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple’s next-gen 6.1-inch LCD iPhone to outsell next-gen 5.8- and 6.5-inch OLED iPhone X models – February 5, 2018
When will someone begin publishing a single list of analysts’ reliability-ratings? If nothing else, such a list would cause concern and caution by analysts who make predictions merely to generate attention or “hits”. Maybe this is something MDN is uniquely qualified to do?
It’s not necessary. You just have to read the fine print, “These comments represent the uninformed opinion of an untrained person and are for entertainment purposes only.”
And…. if TSMC report is the excuse for all this BS and FUD…. anyone concerned should read the article below and see how massivly information is being manipulated and twisted.
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2018/04/the-media-unjustifiably-points-the-finger-at-apple-for-bringing-down-tsmcs-second-half-forecasted-profits-for-2018.html
I’ve often suggested this, but nothing happens.
MDN always used to say that a given statement was iCal’d and would be tested in time, but we rarely got to see any of those topics revisited.
It should be trivially simple to log predictions published by analysts and then later publish their previous predictions when newer ones are published so that readers can make a judgement about how reliable they have been in the past and to treat their current predictions accordingly.
As we approach Apple’s Q2 financial results announcement, we can look forward to the usual bumper harvest of unsubstantiated rumours and baseless predictions. It happens every quarter. You would think that people might eventually get wise to it, but they get taken in by the same nonsense every quarter.
Apple needs to simplify their phone lineup.
It’s like trying to customize a BMW with them!
Allow the resellers to dry up the supply of 6 and 7 and old SE models, offer updated version of the SE, 8, 8+ and X models ranging from $350 for SE, $500 for the 8, $650 for the 8+ and $800 for the X (or whatever replaces them). Give each of the 4 models only one (large) size of storage and be done with it.
There will NEVER be just one storage size. Most of the phone profit margin is made by customers paying for more memory.
Yes this is obvious which, like the old Mac RAM upgrades makes Apple look desperate for money.
They can do better.
Apple has hit the point with the iPhone that Microsoft/PC Assemblers hit with Windows XP: for the average user, what they have is good enough.
Along with that is the simple fact that about 2/3rds of our population is just barely above water financially. Get away from the Left-Right Political nonsense and start taking a good solid look at the state of our economy and the average American family- it is pretty damn ugly.
About 20% of the American people are doing better than they ever have, about 20% doing as badly as ever and the rest are regressing
Honestly, I thought the iPhone X was a dud, too. Nobody asked for Face ID, all of the other improvements were incremental, and DAMN, the price point. Apple can do and has done better.
from MDN article yesterday:
“Apple remained the most profitable smartphone brand through the fourth quarter of 2017, according to a new market research report,” Mike Peterson writes for iDropNews. “The Cupertino tech giant managed to capture 86 percent of the total smartphone market profits Q4 2017 [according to a new report by Counterpoint Research].”
“The iPhone X accounted for 21 percent of total revenue and 35 percent total of the profits made by the entire industry in the fourth quarter…
… For context, the iPhone X generated about five times as much profit as more than 600 Android manufacturers in the same time period combined”
——-
With such a significant chunk of iPhone profit from the sale of iPhone X at such a high price point, I would think any news of iPhone X faltering makes future profits more volatile.
What’s to be discontinued is the $1,000 price tag.
The price point may just be ‘moved’ to the next model replacing the X.
If these rumors about the iPhone X are true, and I”m starting to think that they are, then the X has to be one of the worst products Apple has made in recent memory. No super cycle and an obliterated stock price. That’s the legacy of the iPhone X.
Apple hasn’t come out with anything good since Jobs left.
Cook was living off the last vapors of Steve and now with the vapors totally dissipated, Apple is clueless on what to do next. Look at the X, that was the most disappointing garbage they have ever put out.
It’s no surprise that the X didn’t catch on and will soon go away.
Yes, Apple will discontinue the iPhone X this year. They replace the current flagship iPhone **every year**. While I don’t think there will be an iPhone XS, the name is just too tempting, the X will most likely get replaced with a similar iPhone XI and the iPhone 8 will get a modest upgrade. Apple and the Carriers may still have the X in inventory for replacement purposes, but Apple won’t be making new ones.
I’m sure that Apple decided on how the names will progress when they came up with iPhone X.
For some time I’ve been expecting Apple to call the models something like iPhone mini ( SE ), iPhone, iPhone maxi and iPhone X and then to add the year as a differentiator so that the next range of iPhones will become iPhone SE19 through to iPhone X19 and twelve months later we will see iPhone SE20 through to iPhone X20.
If Apple did that, you can be 100% certain that Samsung will immediately do it too because they would suddenly decide that it’s the obvious thing to do, just like everything else that Apple does suddenly becomes the obvious thing to do.
With Apple’s affinity with the “X” designation for nearly a couple of decades, and the iPhone reaching “X”, I can see the future designations being X2, or X2(superscript intended), etc.
Think about the absurdity of this statement: “TSMC’s record inventory levels are due to Apple not buying components for any future iPhone X models, suggesting the device will be killed off this year”. That would imply that Apple and TSMC don’t tightly coordinate their manufacturing/purchasing decisions. Apple “hey we need you to send us 50 million chips from your shelves….” Not.
$5,000 iMacs and $1,000 iPhones may make sense in Silicon Valley where a run down 50 year old starter home commands a Million Dollar price tag, but most of their customers live in a very different world. That run down 50 year old starter home commands about $100 k out in flyover country.
Over half of American households cannot handle an unexpected $400 expense and do not have accesss to credit on reasonable terms. The consumer debt now carried by the average American household is higher than ever and is almost equal to 1/3rd of the Median Household Income and that is at interest rates considered usurious just a generation ago. The number buying cars and trucks with subprime credit is massive and growing and delinquency is higher now than before the last recession. The economy is not the stock market and the economy is not that great away from a handful of enclaves.
I have a 7 and can easily afford an iPhone X, but consider the pricing obscene and the features as not justification for that price. Repeatedly I have called the price an IQ test and I still think that is true. In the end it is just a cellphone and there is little it does significantly better than any number of other phones available for far less.
I feel the days of $50,000 pickup trucks and $1,000 cell phones are numbered for Joe and Jane Six-Pack. Apple is fighting the natural trend of consumer electronics which has been to see them become MORE affordable over time- not more expensive. The $1,000 VHS VCR eventually became the less than $100 model. My first HDTV was a 1080 32” LCD Samsung that was over $2,000 on sale- something that can be bought for 1/10th of that now. The $1,000 flip phone is now a burner pre-paid in plastic at the Dollar Store.
Many said such things about the “gimmick” that was the original iPhone in 2007, that it wont work etc. Same morons now predicting the same for the iPhone X. Stupid much
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/20/apple-isnt-trashing-the-iphone-x.html
Discontinued? It will be replaced with something better as has happened year after year. Another transparent effort to manipulate Apple stock.
Mirabaud is an asset management firm in Switzerland with only $31B under management. Apple has more assets under management that those guys.
Just call the new damn iPhone, “iPhone “ and stop with the numbering. “iPhone Pro” top end, “iPhone “ regular phone and “iPhone mini” for smaller size phone. Do like the iPads.
The big question is will apple learn its lesson?
The X is a great phone – the price is a joke.
Only a year back the top spec newly released iPhone 7 was selling at hundreds less then this years model. Apple thought it could rinse everyone and sales show that people aren’t having it.
The next generation of iphone x is expected to be launched pretty soon. I think Apple will continue iphone X series . Note X represent 10 in Roman number