Photo: Courtesy of Apple.
The iPhone 5C may be cheaper than its gilded 5S counterpart, but that doesn't make it more popular. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has told two of its assemblers in Taiwan that it will scale back its iPhone 5C orders this quarter. The report, if true, suggests that the lower-priced phone hasn't been as popular with consumers as the company expected. People familiar with the situation told the Journal that one assembler's order would be cut by roughly 20 percent, and another's by about 30 percent. A component supplier, meanwhile, was told to scale back production by 50 percent. For a company that sells millions of phones, those are hardly insignificant numbers.
This doesn't come as a much of a surprise, however. Retailers, including Walmart and Best Buy, have been cutting prices on the 5S to $50 or less. AllThingsD reported this week that the 5S is outselling the 5C two-to-one. Apple itself hasn't released any specific sales figures, but it did announce that it had sold a combined total of nine million new phones over its launch weekend. (WSJ)