Apple Suppliers Reporting Dropping Revenues Due to Declining iPhone X Orders

Apple has nearly addressed supply struggles for the iPhone X and waiting times have dropped to just 1 week, and analysts expect the next weeks to bring a substantial increase in sales for the company.

But component suppliers are already reporting dropping revenues caused by declining iPhone X orders, explaining that shipments not only that went down in November, but are also expected to continue their collapse in December.

A report from DigiTimes and citing the typical “sources from the upstream component supply chain” indicates there are already concerns that Cupertino could substantially reduce its orders for the first quarter of the next year.

The existing figures point to a concerning quarter for both Apple and suppliers. The anonymous sources claimed that Apple’s orders in November were 30 percent below the forecast and a dropping trend is likely to be maintained in December and January.

30% drop in Q1 2018

Several suppliers have already confirmed substantial drops, including chassis maker Catcher Technology who said its November revenues declined 10.4% month-over-month. Touch panel supplier General Interface Solution (GIS) says it also recorded a substantial decline of 15.53% last month due to weakening demand, while Largan Precision revealed its revenues declined “just” 0.05%.

Despite earlier forecasts pointing to a strong quarter in early 2018 following Apple making more iPhone X inventory available to buyers, the cited sources project a significant decline in March following January and February shipments matching the November performance.

This should represent an increase versus the first quarter of 2017 when the more subtly revised iPhone 7 was available, but still way behind original projections.

Although no figures were provided, Apple says demand for the iPhone X is strong. The initial stock, which was estimated at approximately 3 million units, sold out in just a few minutes in the majority of markets, not necessarily as a result of the huge demand, but also because of the constrained supply.