I work in the CE industry. It's pretty widely known that Apple usually pads their initial estimates pretty heavily, but includes wicked bad penalties if a supplier CANNOT meet the padded demand. If demand actually meets their estimates (which it almost never does), then Apple is covered.
BUT, when demand is short of estimates (which is the most common case), Apple uses the surplus manufacturing capacity the factory has to beat them down on price. They make them over-commit on production capacity, then force price-downs when the initial order estimates are low and production capacity is at only 70% or so.
Win/win for Apple!
Great. Solid info.
I believe that product reached its plateau. Saturation levels in some markets too.
One trick I’ve seen them do in the past is release a major iOS upgrade that wrecks performance or some critical aspect of the previously fine hardware. Like Win10 upgrade nagware, many people just give up after a while and get what’s new. Planned obsolescence, meet planned annoyance.
The rule here is never upgrade the iOS after Apple releases new hardware.
Uh, no, they do not. You're spouting BS. If what you claim were true, no contractor would do business with Apple. Apple is well known for their just in time inventory control. Apple does not pad their orders. Apple pays for the equipment for the contractors' assembly lines and specialized manufacturing for their lines.
Your link was from JANUARY and was totally expected quarterly reduction from the previous holiday quarter and in anticipation of the NEW iPhone SE release, which Apple still cannot meet orders on. Apple's FIRST CALANDAR 2016 was lower than the highly unusual 2015 quarter which saw the upgrading due to the previous quarter's release of the first large screen iPhone 6.