News of a decline in demand for iPhone has seen Apple’s share price fall to its lowest point in nearly a year.
Apple’s share price fell 3.6 per cent to $501.75 yesterday – a 28 per cent fall since its September 2012 high. Bloomberg reports that Apple has ordered just half of the 65m iPhone 5 displays it had originally targeted for this quarter and last month cut its production by 30 per cent.
However, JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz claims that the alteration to orders “may also be due to suppliers becoming more adept at building the latest iPhone, reducing the need for Apple to order excess parts”.
Added Moskowitz: “The bigger message related to any potential order cuts could be that iPhone 5 manufacturing yields and thereby gross margin are on the rebound.”
That’s not to say Apple isn’t facing a tough fight in the months ahead, however.
Atlantic Equities Service analyst James Cordwell stated: “We’re getting close to saturation. The real growth is going to come from emerging markets, and Apple’s share in emerging markets is much lower than it is in other markets at the moment due to such high prices.”
Apple is rumoured to be readying a lower-spec budget version of the iPhone which it will reveal in the summer.