Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has slashed production of its iPhone 5C due to limited demands, claims Chinese website Ctechcn, which earlier (prior to the release) also published pictures of the iPhone 5S box. According to the Chinese site the production of the iPhone will be reduced from 300,000 per day to 150,000 per day.
Apple iPhone 5C sales sluggish
iPhone 5C is the first low priced phone from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and was launched alongside iPhone 5S last month. iPhone 5C is primarily positioned towards emerging market consumers. However, the cost of iPhone 5C is not all that low at only £62 less than the iPhone 5S, which came with fingerprint technology.
Earlier, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) revealed statistics where it stated that nine million iPhones have been sold in the first weekend, but did not provide the model break up of sales. Industry experts and analysts feel that out of nine million purchases, the majority were iPhone 5S.
Demand for high end iPhones is more compared to the iPhone 5C, as evident from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s own website where iPhone 5C is available within 24 hours compared to iPhone 5S whose availability is limited to October.
AllThingsD, citing a report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, said earlier that iPhone 5S sales are two times that of iPhone 5C. The report claimed that approximately 64 percent of 5S models were sold in the final days of September. iPhone 5C could only garner 27 percent of sales and iPhone 4S captured the remaining share.
Can iPhone 6 be expected?
Several experts and market watchers are speculating that lowering the production of iPhone 5C could mean that iPhone 6 is already underway for public release. A few analysts noted that launching iPhone 5C helped Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to bring down the price of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 5 and in turn keep its high margin.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo lowered his projections for the third quarter sales of the iPhone 5C. He estimated that total iPhone 5C models sold will be around 11.4 million units, which is a decline of 33 percent from the previous figure.
For the fourth quarter also, analysts lowered estimated sales to 10.4 million units and said that retailers are lowering the price of 5C to increase sales of the product. Retailers like Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) and Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) have cut prices by $50 or more.
