24/7 Wall St.

From Apple Suppliers Suffer as It Struggles to Forecast iPhone Demand ($) in Monday’s Wall Street Journal: 

Lower-than-expected demand for Apple Inc.’s new iPhones and the company’s decision to offer more models have created turmoil along its supply chain and made it harder to predict the number of components and handsets it needs, people familiar with the situation say.

In recent weeks, Apple slashed production orders for all three of the iPhone models that it unveiled in September, these people said, frustrating executives at Apple suppliers as well as workers who assemble the handsets and their components.

Forecasts have been especially problematic in the case of the iPhone XR. Around late October, Apple slashed its production plan by up to a third of the approximately 70 million units it had asked some suppliers to produce between September and February, people familiar with the matter said.

And in the past week, Apple told several suppliers that it cut its production plan again for the iPhone XR, some of the people said Monday, as Apple battles a maturing smartphone market and stiff competition from Chinese producers.

My take: The supply chain gets its revenge. The landed at 5 a.m. Eastern billed as “breaking news,” although most of it is old news. It’s hard to tell how bad this really is for Apple. The stock is down in pre-market trading.