Apple could be cutting its production on both notebooks and the iPhone according to Ars Technica. With the current economic downturn that’s not terribly surprising, though.
The news comes from Quanta, a Taiwanese OEM that Apple has outsourced a good portion of its production to. The company is suggesting that Apple may be cutting its notebook production by as much as 30%.
One element that is not clear in the report, however, is if Quanta is capable of Apple’s new manufacturing process for its Macbook and Macbook Pro lines. If not, that could easily explain any drop in orders to the Taiwanese OEM. If they can’t produce the new Macbook and Macbook Pros then that would leave them with only the Macbook Air, the white Macbook, and the 17 inch Macbook Pro to manufacture – easily cutting their orders.
It is also completely possible that Apple is merely trying to keep from having excessive inventory as sales are sure to decline, at least slightly, if the economy remains in turmoil.
3 thoughts on “Is Apple cutting its notebook production?”
The MacBook Air aluminum case is made by the same process and the new MacBooks.
Why wouldn’t Quanta be capable of be capable of Apple’s “new” manufacturing process for MacBooks and MacBook Pros if they are already making MacBook Airs?
What would be funny is if Apple cut back on production in China only to start producing some MacBook/MacBook Pros here in the U.S. You don’t need a very large factory to set up a bunch of CNC milling machines. They’re not all that expensive, either. As simple as those new unibody are to assemble, you could have monkeys putting them together.
Most analysts and nearly anyone else can easily assume that Apple will not sell a lot of Mac notebooks later this year and next year, but we could just as easily be wrong.