Analyst: Apple boosting iPod orders, cutting Macs
updated 04:30 pm EDT, Wed May 28, 2008
Apple iPod, Mac orders
Apple is shifting the amount of stock it is ordering from manufacturers, according to FBR Capital Markets analyst Craig Berger. In conducting a survey of Apple's supply chain, Berger says he has learned that for the June quarter, the company has boosted its iPod build numbers by 15 percent over the March quarter. This leads him to believe that iPod builds will grow 35 percent quarter-over-quarter.
"We see greater Shuffle, Classic, and Nano builds slightly offset by fewer Touch builds," says Berger, "with greater Shuffle builds accounting for most of the increased iPod builds."
No reason has been given for the decline in Touch manufacturing, but it is argued by AppleInsider that people may be delaying a purchase until they discover how much a 3G iPhone may cost. One is expected to be announced on June 9th at Apple's WWDC conference.
Mac builds in the same quarter are meanwhile said to have dropped slightly, with an emphasis on the MacBook Pro. "For the second quarter, we see total PC build volumes declining about 15 percent sequentially due to Apple's [notebook] inventory build in 1Q," Berger estimates.
iPhone production has been cut in recent months by somewhere under 9 percent, but it is believed that it may climb to as much as 250 percent before the end of June, reaching a figure of three million. If Apple does launch a 3G iPhone in this timeframe, it will need considerable stock in advance in order to avoid launch-day shortages.
