iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max
Todd Haselton | CNBC
Apple cut orders for iPhones by 20%, according to a report from Nikkei on Wednesday, due to reduced demand for its smallest iPhone 12 mini model.
The new iPhones from Apple are still in high demand. According to Nikkei, Apple plans to build 230 million iPhones by 2021, an increase of 11.6% from 2020. But the iPhone 12 mini is not selling as well as expected, as consumers are drawn to the older iPhone 11, which has a larger screen, the larger iPhone 12 or the more premium iPhone 12 Pro models.
Apple shares were slightly negative in premarket trading Wednesday. Shares rose more than 4% on Tuesday.
Consumer sentiment seems to be echoing the reviews of the phones when they first launched in November. For example, CNBC said the iPhone 12 mini is actually just a smaller version of the iPhone 12 with worse battery life. And while it’s appealing to those with smaller hands, most consumers should just spend the extra $ 100 for the iPhone 12, which has better battery life and a larger screen.
However, the iPhone 12 models have largely been successful for Apple. Apple no longer discloses how many iPhones it sells each quarter, but in January, research firm IDC said Apple shipped 90.1 million devices in the fourth quarter of 2020, the “highest shipments volume from a supplier in a quarter,” and helped Apple to the best phone seller in the world, ahead of Samsung for the quarter. Apple iPhone revenues for the quarter were also up 17% year on year.
That momentum behind the iPhone 12 helped Apple deliver a record-breaking holiday quarter in 2020, bringing in more than $ 100 billion in a quarter for the first time in the company’s history.
Apple was not immediately available to comment.