iPhone X production shalshed; shares dip

Apple has decided to halve its iPhone X production target for the first quarter of the year to around 20 million units. This announcement has resulted in sending its shares down by 1.6 percent.

The report added to growing concerns about weak sales of the $999 phone, making investors jittery about the company’s financial outlook when it reports first-quarter results on Thursday, January 25.

Apple’s shares fell to their lowest level in 2018, knocking off $14 billion from the company’s market value.

A UBS analyst said, “Apple earnings should handily beat December quarter expectations, but March guidance could moderately disappoint.”

The production cut was prompted by slower-than-expected sales in the holiday shopping season in Europe, the United States and China, the Japanese newspaper reported, without citing a source.

The iPhone X was the first phone to sport a new design since the launch of the iPhone 6 in 2015 and many expected it to lead to blockbuster sales, dubbed by Wall Street analysts as a “supercycle.”

A survey of people planning to buy the iPhone showed that the percentage of them looking to buy the iPhone X has dropped to 37 per cent from 43 per cent in an earlier survey, UBS analysts wrote in a note on Monday, January 29.

The iPhone X, which features an edge-to-edge display and facial recognition technology to unlock the phone, went on sale in November in the United States.

Shares of US-listed Apple suppliers such as Micron Technology Inc edged lower following Nikkei’s report.