Apple cuts iPhone X production by another 6 million units, bringing total to 75 million

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The iPhone X, a narrow-framed phone launched by Apple last year, suffered a setback in the market. The low sales of the phone have put Apple in an embarrassing decline in its mobile phone sales. According to foreign media ***, *** analyst reports show that Apple has once again cut its iPhone X production plan, with a total reduction of 75 million units.

In fact, since the beginning of 2018, "downturn" and "reduction" have become two key words in the news surrounding Apple's iPhone X. Earlier, Japan's authoritative Nikkei News reported that Apple cut its first-quarter iPhone X production plan by half, from 40 million units to 20 million units.

According to the US financial investment website MotleyFool, the US BlueFin Research Company recently released a research report on Apple. The report said that just last weekend, its sources showed that Apple once again cut its iPhone X production plan, cutting the scale by 6 million units.

The agency said that compared with the initial grand sales plan for iPhone X, Apple has cut its production plan by a total of 75 million units, which is equivalent to Apple's mobile phone sales in one quarter.

In the first quarter of this year, the media reported that various suppliers had received a decline in Apple orders, and Wall Street analysts had lowered their sales expectations for Apple phones.

According to Taiwanese media reports, Taiwanese suppliers received insufficient orders for Apple mobile phone components in February, which led to an extended holiday and a short-term suspension of production at some suppliers.

Previously, Japan's Nomura Securities cut its forecast for Apple's first-quarter iPhone X sales from 13 million to 18 million units to 8 million to 12 million units.

iPhone X is the first mobile phone launched by Apple using OLED screen. Samsung Display is Apple's only OLED supplier. Several Korean media have also reported that Apple has cut more than half of its OLED screen orders, resulting in a significant reduction in Samsung's production scale.

Currently, Samsung Display's OLED production line is operating at only half of its capacity, and Samsung is actively looking for other mobile phone screen customers. Due to the poor performance of iPhone X, the global mobile phone OLED screen market has gone from being in short supply last year to being in oversupply.

It is now late March. As usual, Apple will release its first-quarter financial report in April, and its mobile phone sales will also be revealed.

It is worth mentioning that the first and second quarters are the off-season for Apple's business performance. Many consumers have already bought the Apple products they wanted during the Christmas shopping season, resulting in a decline in sales in the following two quarters. In addition, in the third quarter of each year, Apple holds an autumn press conference to launch new mobile phones for the year, so consumers often hold their money in the first half of the year to wait for Apple's new products.

Reasons for the downturn

From the perspective of boosting Apple's mobile phone business, iPhone X has become a failed product. In the fourth quarter of last year, Apple launched three new mobile phones, but its sales fell year-on-year. Apple's mobile phone sales have shrunk for several quarters in the past two years. However, the iPhone X, which Apple launched with great fanfare, is unlikely to help Apple's mobile phone sales get out of the decline crisis.

The media's analysis of why iPhone X's sales are sluggish is relatively consistent. There are two main reasons. The first is that the price is too high. Apple's price of $999 set a company record, while in the Asia-Pacific region, the actual price of iPhone X is close to $1,300, which is beyond the purchasing power of many people.

In 2017, Apple, Samsung and other companies started a wave of mobile phone price increases, which resulted in a further decline in consumers' desire to upgrade, and the global mobile phone market experienced its first annual decline in history. In 2018, Samsung and other companies seemed to have learned the lesson of arbitrary price increases and reduced the prices of their mobile phones.

Another reason for the sluggish sales of iPhone X is the poor user experience. The notch screen design causes serious visual interference to users, and the experience is particularly bad when watching pictures and videos.

The special-shaped screen design also brings software design difficulties to a large number of third-party developers.

In addition, Apple eliminated fingerprint recognition in iPhone X and replaced it with face recognition. However, users have doubts or disputes in actual use. The trial report of American technology media CNET pointed out that the face recognition of iPhone X is inconvenient to use and the experience is not as good as fingerprint recognition.

Some consumers pointed out that fingerprint recognition can be completed in the instant of picking up the phone, but face recognition requires pointing at the face, which cannot be used in many cases. In addition, there have been reports of unsafe unlocking of the phone by other people's faces.

The poor facial recognition experience has also led to the fact that face scanning has not become the mainstream in the mobile phone industry. It is reported that the mainstream trend of Android phones this year is still to develop under-screen fingerprint recognition, and manufacturers will launch a large number of ultra-narrow-frame mobile phones with fingerprint recognition.