Analyst: Apple cutting Q1 production of iPods, iPhones
Apple does not appear to be very bullish about its business in the first quarter, according to a financial analyst.
Craig Berger of FBR Research tracks chip companies like Broadcom and Marvell that supply chips for Apple's iPods and iPhones, among other things. AppleInsider spotted a report issued by Berger saying that Apple is reducing the number of iPods, iPhones, and Macbooks it plans to build in the first quarter.
Is Apple really cutting production of the iPod Touch, just after releasing a new model?
(Credit: CNET Networks)Consumer electronics and PC companies know the first quarter is always a downer compared with the fourth quarter, which is chock full of holiday shopping goodness. Berger is saying, however, that Apple now plans to cut production by an even larger amount than originally planned. Based on "channel checks," Berger says, Apple is cutting iPod and iPhone production by 60 percent compared with the fourth quarter, when it had originally planned to cut production by 50 percent compared with the fourth quarter.
He says this is "likely reflecting less-than-expected sell-through in 4Q, or thus far in 1Q." (Come on, Craig, this is America, it's Q1). The questions about iPhone sell-through in the fourth quarter have come up before, but iPod Touch sales appeared to be strong during Apple's most recent financial quarter.
One factor could be the launch of the new 32GB iPod Touch, which could have caused Apple to reduce production of older models of the iPod Touch in anticipation of demand for the higher-capacity model. The report was issued at almost the exact same time that Apple announced the new iPods, and it's not clear whether or not the channel checks include production of the 32GB version.
An Apple representative declined to comment on the report, which also suggested that the company is planning to reduce production of Macbooks while increasing production of iMacs. Banc of America issued a similar report regarding iPods last week, but said iPhone production is up after cuts in December and January.
If the economy really is headed south, it's going to affect us all; Apple won't be immune. Apple's stock fell another 5.69 percent Wednesday, or $7.36, to close at $122. It's down 37 percent so far in 2008, while the Nasdaq as a whole is down about 9 percent.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
In this article you wrote:
> He says this is "likely reflecting
> less-than-expected sell-through in 4Q, or thus
> far in 1Q." (Come on, Craig, this is America,
> it's Q1).
Specifically your comment, "Come on, Craig, this is America, it's Q1" was a complete waste of my time. If I were a lawyer charging $100 an hour, I would figure out how much time it took me to read your unnecessary comment and then charge you or CNET's advertisers for a slice of MY time that you wasted.
Who gives a crap about your or anyone else's personal semantic preferences? People can buy Apple stock who come from different countries and who therefore have different personal semantics preferences. Please keep your personal semantic preferences to yourself. If you don't want Craig to use "1Q" then write him a personal email on your own time, not on the time of your readers. My time is not free to you or CNET!
These personal comments are complete turn off and makes me not want to read CNET's articles anymore (and with an advertising recession looming, I doubt that CNET's advertising sponsors would be pleased to hear this from one of CNET's regular readers).
Zed
But, you owe me, for wasting my time with your rant. For someone so concerned about their valuable time, that was a fairly well-thought out piece of writing; it must have taken you a while to put that together, surely longer than it took to read that sentence.
So, it took me about 1 minute to read and decipher your rant, and assuming my time is as valuable as yours, that's $1.67. And I spent another minute responding, so we're up to $3.33.
You can send me a check for $3.22, care of CNET Networks.
No one is forcing you to read these articles and personally I don't think anybody really cares how much your time is worth or how it is spent.
BTW - Just your mention of how much your time is worth indicates that you are ego-centric and really place yourself on a pedestal above all else.
about to release 3G and 3.5G models? I wish.
But if it isn't, then it's crazy. It's judging only by its main staple,
the US market. But the US isn't its only possible market. The
whole world, especially Asia and the Middle East, is out there. If
it got Kevin Swint to put up more international iTunes stores,
then it should be putting up Apple stores all over, too.
Hurry up, Apple, before it's too late! Don't limit yourself to a
shrinking American market, and don't pin too much hope on
Europe -- Europe doesn't especially love American products.
- Maybe they will finally realize...
- by stalexone February 7, 2008 4:46 PM PST
- That to grow the business in a sustainable fashion, they need to release OS X to the general PC world as a standalone operating system. Talk about lines around the block for that and a market cap jump that would make Google's $500 stock price look paltry!
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- Bad idea
- by ralfthedog February 8, 2008 6:56 AM PST
- If OS X starts hitting the market on junk Dell/Newegg class hardware, Apple will loose a great deal of the reliability advantage they have over Windows. Apple makes more money selling hardware than they do selling an OS. They would be cutting there own throats.
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