E27 published a click-bait post about Apple facing lawsuits and lukewarm sales forecasts as year comes to a close.
The iPhone X may have just been released to much fanfare and adulation, but Apple is already cutting down on production orders in January next year, amid falling demand.
Yon wrote that Apple is cutting down production orders because of falling demand. How does he come to this conclusion?
Several analysts interviewed by Bloomberg have cut their iPhone X shipment projections by five to 10 million. New York-based research firm JL Warren Capital said that the iPhone X’s “high price point and lack of interesting innovations” were to blame for the lukewarm reception.
His claim is based on analysts reviewing their shipment projects, not an actual Apple announcement or even a figure based on the production order. So the analysts are in charge of making Apple’s production orders.
How does he know that reception for the iPhone X has been lukewarm? Because the analysts changed their minds?
The Bloomberg report also stated that Apple has adjusted its sales forecast to 30 million in the first quarter of 2018, down from 50 million. Its sole manufacturing partner for iPhone X, Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, has also ceased recruiting new workers.
Yon refers to the Bloomberg report, saying that Apple has adjusted its sales forecast. But read the Bloomberg article and you’ll realise that it is a claim reported by a Taiwanese newspaper, not an official Apple adjustment.
As for the recruitment of new workers, if you are familiar with the Chinese industry you’ll know that it is extremely hard to hire at this time of the year. Most people are not keen to start a new job so close to Chinese New Year.
They would stay on the current job until the Chinese New Year holidays. It is not strange for a factory to stop hiring if they don’t foresee staff leaving. They have no vacancies to fill.
In China, there has been less social media chatter about iPhone X compared to its predecessors, according to a Reuters report. On Weibo, there were only 4.97 million posts on iPhone compared to iPhone 6’s six million posts.
Does this point to a lack of interest in the iPhone X? Or does this instead point to the shift away from Weibo as a social media platform?
Most people I know are active on WeChat rather than Weibo. WeChat Moments are private posts visible only to your friends. Hence the lack of analysis of social media chatter about iPhone X on WeChat. Likewise for QQ or Qzone, the other social media platform used by most people.
I have followed the growth of E27 as a news portal with great interest because it writes a lot about news in the region.
However, this post has really disappointed me with its ignorance and a lack of effort to research the points covered. Instead, we get a post that throws in click-baiting title and phrases to grab page views.
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