iPhone shipping forecast lowered due to coronavirus outbreak
Amid the deadly coronavirus sweeping through China, leading Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has cut his estimated iPhone shipments for the first quarter of 2020 by 10 percent to 36-40 million units, warning of the potential effect the virus outbreak could wreak on Apple’s supply chain.
With the rumored low-cost ‘iPhone 9’ due to enter mass-production this month, it is feared that supply of the new handset will be limited at launch as factory workers are affected by the illness and Apple recovers from its operations in mainland China being temporally suspended as a result of the outbreak.
Kuo’s latest research note predicts smartphone shipments in China are set to dramatically decline year-over-year during the Chinese New Year holiday period, with the market saturating by 50-60 percent.
The supply chain warning comes after sources claimed factories in China, roughly 500 kilometers away from Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, were working to deliver the first of the 15 million units of the ‘iPhone 9’ ordered by Apple.