Cowan: iPhone production down 21% in March quarter

And down another 20% year over year in June.

From a note to clients by analysts Karl Ackerman et al. that landed on my desktop Wednesday:

iPhone Builds: Soft Y/Y Comps Ahead, Slack In Newest SKUs

While we maintain last month’s estimate for CQ4:18 iPhone production of 74MM units (-11% Y/Y), we revise our estimates down for CQ1:19 iPhone production to 41MM units (44MM units prior), or down 21% Y/Y, largely due to our field work that suggests a ~4MM unit cut to the iPhone XR model. Our preliminary expectations for JunQ 2019 also imply a 20% Y/Y decline, with builds dipping to the low 30MMs.

All told, we estimate “new” iPhone production (XR/XS/XS Max) will be down 14% Y/Y in CQ4:18, down 9% Y/Y in CQ1:19 and down 24% Y/Y in CQ2:19. Based on this relative softness, we anticipate that 2019 aggregate iPhone production may amount to 190MM for the year, down low double digits from 2018. Refer to Figures 3 through 5 for plots of our current and prior estimates of supply vs. AAPL sell-in since CQ2:14.

Samsung Production Is Holding Up Better Than Apple, While Huawei Benefits From Unwavering Domestic Support…

Cue the chart:

My take: Despite Tim Cook’s warning, these semiconductor analysts are still counting iPhone units. Probably because that’s what their sources do.

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