Investors were sent into a panic on Monday, again, as reports from Nikkei and The Wall Street Journal suggested Apple (AAPL) slashed iPhone 5 component orders in half due to weak demand. According to both reports, Apple recently trimmed its iPhone 5 display panel orders from 65 million to around half that figure. BGR pulled the report apart on Monday, and now NPD DisplaySearch analyst Paul Semenza says his sources paint a much different picture of Apple’s recent order cuts.
Semenza’s checks with his supply chain sources revealed that Apple did indeed cut its display panel orders for the month of January, but not by 50% as earlier reports had stated. Speaking with The New York Times, the analyst said Apple trimmed iPhone 5 display orders for January from 19 million to between 11 million and 14 million.
If the analyst’s figures are accurate, the recent order cuts likely aren’t as severe as earlier reports suggested. They still represent a big adjustment, as Semenza noted, possibly indicating that demand for the iPhone 5 is nowhere near what Apple had anticipated.
