Apple is slowing down its iPhone production by about 10 percent in the first financial quarter of 2017, according to a new report posted this week, citing calculations made from supplier data.
This comes after a Flurry Analytics report, which saw Apple tower atop the charts in terms of device activations this holiday season, besting other companies.
Cutting iPhone Production Down
The report comes from Nikkei, positioning the production cuts as the result of sluggish iPhone sales in the previous quarter. This isn't the first time for Apple to slash production rates for its smartphone line — it had done so in the January to March 2016, after inventory of the iPhone 6s line accumulated at the end of 2015.
The experience led the company to curb iPhone 7 production by about 20 percent this year, Nikkei said. Still, iPhone 7 sales were slower than expected. Reuters has already reached out to an Apple spokesperson but wasn't able to get any comments.
Other iPhone News
Nikkei says that Apple has had difficulty appealing to consumers with new features on its flagship smartphone. The iPhone 7 and its larger dual-camera-wielding sibling, the iPhone 7 Plus, arguably weren't stark upgrades over their predecessors, which is possibly the reason why there's little fanfare behind the two.
However, Apple is expected to make headway for a new line of iPhones in 2017, with rumors touting a new iteration that's drastically different from past entries. Tentatively named the iPhone 8, the phone marks the tenth anniversary for the iPhone line, and Apple might finally radically refresh the design this time.
iPhone 8
Several rumors have suggested that it could come in three different sizes, and the largest one could feature an AMOLED display supplied exclusively by Samsung.
The phones may also sport an all-glass design that'll pave the way for wireless charging, a feature Apple has never given its smartphones. Rumors also point to a 10-nanometer A11 chip under the hood, faster and more power efficient than the previous iteration. It's been reported that TSMC has completed the early design stages of the chip.
Advanced biometric features could also be slated for the phone in question, with facial recognition and iris scanning as examples. It remains to be seen what purpose they could serve, if indeed true, but they will likely be alternative unlocking methods, or they could act as another layer of protection during transactions, such as online payments.
There's also whispers of a new 5-inch model with a vertical dual-camera setup due for a 2017 release, bearing the same internals as the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. We'll know more as 2017 comes into finer view.
