Taiwan-based Apple supply chain firms, on the other hand, claim that they haven’t received any requests from consumers to change their purchases yet.
In the wake of reports that Apple was reducing manufacturing of several of its products, a fresh report claims that its supplier chain hasn’t received any requests for updated orders.
It was reported today by a paywalled Digitimes story that
Orders for Apple’s 5G iPhone SE and AirPods were reported to have been decreased in the second quarter, but Taiwan-based firms in the Apple supply chain claim that they are still awaiting instructions from customers on order revisions…
Several sources have reported that Apple is reducing manufacturing of its new best affordable iPhone, the iPhone SE, and its latest best true wireless earbuds, the AirPods 3. This news comes as no surprise.
Both Nikkei Asia and Ming-Chi Kuo have said lately that they are planning to reduce output. According to the former, due to inflation and the Ukraine conflict, which it said was reducing consumer demand for gadgets, Apple would slash iPhone SE manufacturing by 20% in the next quarter. For the iPhone SE, Ming-Chi Kuo slashed his 2022 sales forecasts from 25-30 million to to 15-20 million.
Apple’s third-generation AirPods orders were slashed by more than 30 percent in both Q3 and Q2, according to Kuo. For this, he claims, it has to do with Apple’s poor product segmentation strategy. This has resulted in the AirPods’ continued popularity eating away at sales of the newer version. When the new AirPods Pro are released, Kuo believes Apple will discontinue the existing AirPods Pro model to prevent the same thing occurring.