Remember how the 5C was touted as a colorful, cheaper option to the iPhone 5S that everybody was going to want for themselves? Eh. Apparently it’s not as popular as Apple was hoping, because they just told two of their biggest producers that they’ll be drastically reducing their orders of the 5C for the forth quarter. Trouble in iParadise, maybe?
Earlier this month, as Dow Jones Newswires first reported, both Foxconn and Pegatron Corp were both told by Apple that the tech company would be reducing shipments of the iPhone 5C for the period from October through December. Pegatron, which assembles two thirds of all iPhones will be cutting down less than 20%, while Foxconn, who manages the last third, will also be losing a third of their orders. A third unnamed components supplier had their parts order cut by almost 50%.
So what’s happened? Maybe Foxconn’s controversial labor violations being connected to the 5C have convinced consumers to turn elsewhere — but since when has news of abysmal working conditions at Foxconn actually made any sort of dent in Apple’s bottom line? It sure didn’t for those couple of weeks when we all thought that Mike Daisey was telling the truth about his trip to the Apple factory.
More likely it’s that people just aren’t interested in the plastic-framed, glue-filled phone as Apple originally thought they might be, especially at the price Apple is asking. Most stores carry the old iPhone 5 for exactly the same price or lower, and a lot of buyers are probably just getting those instead — that’s what I did, as a matter of fact, and for me it was honestly as simple as not being able to choose a color and liking the weight of the 5 in my hand much more. And, of course, it’s also entirely possible that the problem lies in the recent foreign markets that Apple has decided to tap, where the “cheaper” phone isn’t actually that affordable at all.
In fact, let’s not assume at all that the cut in orders from Foxconn has anything to do with labor abuses, because Apple seems to be gearing up to boost production of the 5S instead. This makes sense when you think about it: the 5S is only marginally more expensive to make than its plastic counterpart, and is reportedly much more popular. So much for those fancy, colorful TV spots, huh?
(via Phys.org and TechCrunch)
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