Apple to manufacture top of the range iPhones as it battles sluggish demand

Apple plans to launch three iPhone models this year with some new camera features, including three rear cameras for the most expensive model and two for the other models, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The new iPhones will succeed the XR model that has shown sluggish demand, which according to Apple was due […]

Apple plans to launch three iPhone models this year with some new camera features, including three rear cameras for the most expensive model and two for the other models, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The new iPhones will succeed the XR model that has shown sluggish demand, which according to Apple was due to weak sales in China.

That led several electronics retailers in the world’s second largest economy to slash iPhone prices this week.

Apple CEO Tim Cook had told investors that the main drag on the firm’s performance in China had been a sharper-than-expected slowdown in the country’s economy, exacerbated by the impact of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Apple was not available for comment outside regular business hours.

The Cupertino, California-based company has decided to stick to liquid-crystal display (LCD) at a time when sluggish sales of iPhone XR cut into its most recent revenue projection, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Apple recently issued its first revenue warning in nearly 12 years, sending its shares down 10 percent, their biggest intra-day fall in six years.

Apple plans to continue with LCD model as the device has been in the production pipeline for months, the report said.

However, for 2020, Apple will fully switch to the organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, display for iPhones, thereby completely dropping the LCD model, the report said.

Shares of the company was nearly flat in premarket trading.

Apple, which slashed its quarterly sales forecast last week, has reduced planned production for its three new iPhone models by about 10 percent for the January-March quarter, the Nikkei Asian Review reported on Wednesday.

That rare forecast cut exposed weakening iPhone demand in China, the world’s biggest smartphone market, where a slowing economy has also been buffeted by a trade war with the United States.

However, it comes as Apple CEO Tim Cook told Mad Money’s Jim Cramer, when asked about reports that the iPhone XR was a flop, Cook says he calls ‘bologna on that.’

He said the iPhone XR has, in fact, been the most popular iPhone ‘every single day’ since it started shipping out to customers.

Many analysts and consumers have said the new iPhones are overpriced.