Apple’s share prices have dived 3.5% to below $500, following reports that the company cut orders for iPhone 5 parts due to weak demand.
Nikkei Japanese news service reported that the firm has nearly halved its orders for liquid crystal displays for the January to March 2013 quarter.
According to Nikkei, the company had ordered about 65 million iPhone screens for the January-to-March quarter this year from its parthers including Sharp and LG Display.
The company reported to have requested its partner to reduce its production at its facility in southwest Japan up to 80% from October-December. While production at Sharp’s iPhone 5 LCD manufacturing facility will be cut by 40% during January-February.
The decline in stock was not only over concerns about iPhone 5 sales, but also over reports of Apple’s plan to introduce of a smaller and less expensive iPad.
There are fears that the Apple has been struggling to compete with its rivals in Asia, including Samsung Electronics.
Samsung has already surpassed Apple as the world’s largest smartphone vendor by market share and its Galaxy S series sales have surpassed 100 million since its launch in May 2010.
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However, Strategy Analytics has projected that Samsung smartphone sales will reach 290 million units in 2013 over iPhone sales of 180 million.
