Current iPhone Orders Greatly Reduced as Apple Prepares its Next iPhone

[Maura]

One of the surefire signs that a new Apple product is on the way is when sales start to slow, and AppleInsider reports that according to Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu’s note to investors today, this is just starting to happen. Agee says that he has noticed from his supplier checks that Apple has reduced iPhone orders by around 20 to 25% from the 35.1 million units that it shipped in the March quarter. If these figures prove to be an accurate prediction, it would see Apple shipping between 26 to 28 million iPhones in the June quarter, which would fall short of Wall Street’s current projections of 30 to 31 million. Wu also said that Apple has 8.6 million iPhones in the channel inventory, which enables Apple to keep its supply/demand rate steady at around 4-6 weeks. In his note, Wu reiterated that the reason for Apple being “conservative with its suppliers” has nothing to do with waning demand from consumers for the iPhone, and much more to do with Apple being prudent ahead of the big launch of its next model, due for September or October of this year.

Source: iPhone orders 'significantly' reduced as Apple begins prepping for next-gen model