From Debby Wu’s “Apple to Keep iPhone Production Flat as Market Grows Tougher” posted Thursday by the Wall Street Journal:
The company is asking suppliers to assemble roughly 220 million iPhones, about the same as last year, according to people familiar with its projections, who asked not to be named as they’re not public. Market forecasts have hovered closer to 240 million units, driven by an expected major update to the iPhone in the fall. But the mobile industry has gotten off to a difficult start to the year and production estimates are down across the board.
The worst inflation in decades, a war in Ukraine and supply-chain turmoil all threaten to weigh on sales in 2022. Strategy Analytics has predicted that overall smartphone shipments will contract as much as 2% in 2022, and TrendForce has twice downgraded its full-year production forecast in recent weeks. IDC and Bloomberg Intelligence analysts both forecast about 240 million iPhones for this year earlier in the period.
My take: I take these IDC and Bloomberg forecasts — like my greens — heavily salted.
Find a successful company willing to seriously comment on future production plans. Clickbait ubiquity as desperate robots compete to write the most inane sentences. Nary a copy editor in sight nor a cyborg. Robots are now the most active traders on major stock markets, exaggerating every share price movement. Heinlein, Orwell and Aldous Huxley could hardly imagine the unnatural dystopia we try to exist in now.
Makes sense to be cycling along a scenic river in the Bohemian Massif.