In a sign that investor enthusiasm about the Apple "rebound" may have been premature, Digitimes reports that Apple has begun to reduce orders for iPhone 7s as initial "sales momentum has started fading", according to sources from Taiwan's handset supply chain.
The Digitimes sources said that initial shipment momentum of the iPhone 7 was in part driven by strong demand for the jet black iPhone 7 models and in part by the mishap brought upon by Samsung Galaxy Note 7. However, demand for the iPhone 7 devices in China and other markets has scaled down significantly since their launch less than three months ago, the sources noted.
However, always willing to dismiss a weakness on behalf of Apple as a one-time event, instead of paying attention to sales performance of the iPhone 7 devices, component suppliers and consumers alike have been shifting their focus to the next generation iPhone to be released in 2017, commented the sources.
Market rumors have indicated that the next generation iPhone will come with OLED displays, glass cases, dual-lens cameras, enhanced CPUs, and advanced sensors, while supporting mixed reality (MR) and wireless charging technologies.
Affected by consumers' high expectations on the next generation iPhone, makers in the supply chain are mostly conservative about the shipment outlook for the iPhone 7 in the first half of 2017, expecting shipments in this six-month period to be at least five million units less than those shipped in the second half of 2016.
Who, in addition to AAPL, is most likely to be impacted: according to Bloomberg, Dialog Semi has the largest exposure to Apple among European suppliers at ~69% of revenue, while other suppliers include AMS, Infineon, Imagination Technologies, STMicro. AAPL was modestly lower, -0.4%, in premarket trading, at $110.