iPhone production down

Apple's production of the iPhone may have fallen by 40 percent or more for the fourth quarter of the year, according to an analyst with Friedman Billings Ramsey. Craig Berger notes that the information is based on "recent checks," which suggest a radical drop in factory output, as compared to a 10 percent slide that had been predicted. A similar cut is said to have happened in the first quarter of the year, but other accounts have suggested this was planned in anticipation of the iPhone 3G.

Although cuts do not automatically imply low demand, and Apple may have ramped up its third-quarter production to an unusually high level, Berger argues that the drop is connected to economic problems. The global situation has become terrible enough, he says, that it is discouraging even the wealthy shoppers who typically buy Apple products.

Silicon Alley Insider comments that while some 6.9 million iPhones were shipped in the September quarter, approximately 2 million of these went into channel inventory.

by MacNN Staff