Apple investors who were worried about the iPhone 5c eating into the company’s margins now have yet another report from the East that should help ease their concerns. Plugged-in Taiwan-based market research firm TrendForce on Wednesday issued a report stating that combined shipments of Apple’s new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c smartphones accounted for more than 60% of the 33.8 million iPhones Apple sold last quarter. The firm also estimated that 5s and 5c shipments were split fairly evenly in Q3.
Moving forward, however, TrendFore says Apple has slashed iPhone 5c orders by a whopping 11 million units in the fourth quarter due to slower than expected sales, and the company increased iPhone 5s orders significantly to accommodate continued heavy demand. As a result, the firm expects the 5c to account for just 24% of total iPhone sales in the holiday quarter while the iPhone 5s makes up the lion’s share of Q4 iPhone sales.
TrendForce expects total holiday-quarter iPhone sales to grow to 48.9 million units, up a mere 2.2% from 47.8 million in the year-ago quarter.
