Apple has dropped plans to increase the production of iPhone devices this year following a fall in demand, according to Bloomberg. The company was anticipating rising demand, hence its plans, but tougher economic conditions have got in the way. The company has already told suppliers not to scale down the number of devices they make.
The plans will affect the iPhone 14 series. The company will now produce about 90 million devices, 6 million units less than it was planning. Interestingly, despite the slowing demand, sources told Bloomberg that Apple was shifting capacity from lower-end iPhone models to higher-end ones as there’s more demand for them.
The fall in demand could be attributed to the fact that lower income households will now be paying a lot more for their energy and food bills and don’t have the luxury of taking out a new contract for an iPhone. It’s likely that this group of people would have gone for a lower end iPhone, which could explain why the demand for high-end models remains, and the lower end appears to have waned.
On the back of the Bloomberg report, several stocks of Apple suppliers fell. TSMC’s stock price fell by 1.8%, Hon Hai’s fell by 2.4%, and Largan Precision and LG Innotek fell by more than 7%. While current events are not great for Apple, it’s still expecting to produce the same number of devices as the year before, so at least it’s not declining.