Apple has reportedly reversed a decision to ramp up iPhone 14 production due to disappointingly low demand.
According to Bloomberg, Apple had instructed its production partners to increase iPhone 14 production due to an expected spike in demand. However, that demand has failed to materialise, prompting Apple to roll back its request.
The report claims that Apple had formerly instructed suppliers to increase production by as many as 6 million units ahead of the lucrative holiday season. Now it appears as if that bumper order has been scrapped.
This isn’t the catastrophic news it might initially seem. Even with this decline in demand, Apple is still expecting to shift 90 million iPhones, which is the same as it managed during the same period last year.
This is also the amount that Apple predicted it would sell back in the summer.
Various factors seem to be at play here, with a looming recession and a strong dollar key among them. China’s stuttering economy can’t have helped demand either, while the ongoing war in Ukraine continues to fuel uncertainty.
There’s also the matter of a previous report that suggested the iPhone 14 wasn’t proving as popular as the iPhone 14 Pro. Apple’s more affordable model typically proves its biggest seller, but its lack of improvements over the iPhone 13, especially in relation to the iPhone 14 Pro, are clearly holding it back.
The iPhone 14 has last year’s A15 Bionic processor and much the same design and display as its immediate predecessor, while the iPhone 14 Pro gains the improved A16 Bionic, a new Dynamic Island notch, and a shiny new 48MP camera.
