Taiwanese publication Digitimes is reporting that Apple’s iPhone manufacturing partner FoxConn is stopping the production of the iPhone 5C completely at its Zhengzhou facility in northern China. The factory will instead be used to make iPhone 5S’ which are outselling the lower end iPhone c by a considerable margin in almost all markets where the new iPhone models have been launched.
Digitimes adds that Apple’s two manufacturing partners Foxconn and Pegatron share 30% and 70% of all iPhone 5C models respectively. In the recent past, Apple has asked Pegatron to cut production of the iPhone 5C by nearly 20% while Foxconn is likely to trim its production to one fourth of what it currently manufactures. Apple will not however stop the production of the iPhone 5C completely as there is chance that demand for the slightly cheaper iPhone may pick up once it reaches more global markets.
Apple launched its new iPhone models back in September 2013. Unlike its previous launches where only one new model was launched, Apple this time round decided to come up with two iPhone models – the iPhone 5C and the more expensive iPhone 5S. Contrary to popular expectations that the iPhone C would be considerably cheaper than the 5S, and primarily targeted at emerging markets, Apple stumped everyone by positioning the iPhone C only slightly below the more feature packed iPhone 5S – leading to people deciding to get the more expensive 5S model and ignoring the 5C completely. It remains to be seen if Apple decides to cut the prices of the iPhone 5C owing to less than expected demand.
While we recommend people to take this report with a slight pinch of salt, we should add that Digitimes has been usually very trustworthy when it comes to reports pertaining to Apple and Apple products in the past.
