The iPhone XR doesn’t appear to be selling as well as Apple expected. According to a new report, the company has halted plans to ramp up production of the newly unveiled handset, which only went on sale in October.
Nikkei Asian Review reports that Apple has suspended plans to increase production of the XR, just weeks after the handset’s release.
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The iPhone XR picked up 4.5/5 in our review, in which we hailed it as “the best all-round iPhone you can buy in 2018”, although this is partly because the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are so exorbitantly expensive, and partly because the iPhone X has been discontinued. However, it appears that consumers think otherwise.
“For the Foxconn side, it first prepared nearly 60 assembly lines for Apple’s XR model, but recently uses only around 45 production lines, as its top customer said it does not need to manufacture that many by now,” said a source who is apparently familiar with the situation.
As a result, Foxconn will reportedly produce 100,000 fewer iPhone XR units per day, which represents a 20-25% reduction from its original brief.
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Similarly, it has been claimed that Pegatron has been told not to expand production of the handset, and that another manufacturer, Wistron − which had reportedly been told to be ready in case Apple received more XR orders than expected − “will receive no orders for the iPhone XR this holiday season”.
What’s more, Nikkei reports that Apple has asked its manufacturing partners to expand production of the year-old iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
Read more: iPhone XS vs iPhone XR
“Suppliers of iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are getting a combined order of around 5 million more units,” a source told the publication.
According to the report, Apple had previously ordered 20 million units of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus for this quarter, but has now raised that figure to 25 million units.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
