Apple boss addresses rumor of iPhone component cuts (sort of)

Apple posted a mixed bag of results on Wednesday for the quarter ending December 29, 2013. Granted, they were the kind of sales figures most companies would die for, but with Apple comes high expectations. Sure, they sold millions of iPhones and iPads – 10 iOS devices a second, apparently – but investors and analysts expect the company to go beyond their forecasts, to smash records, to leave them with their jaws planted firmly on the floor.

During the earnings conference call following the release of the results, Apple boss Tim Cook took the unusual step of commenting on an Apple rumor. No, not the one about the iPhone Math or cheaper handset. They evidently don’t matter to the Cupertino company so much.

Cook picked up on a more damaging story, one that emerged earlier this month suggesting that the tech giant had ordered a significant cut in orders for iPhone 5 components because of “weaker-than-expected demand” for the handset.

Addressing the report, Cook said it was important to “question the accuracy of any kind of rumor about build plans.”

However, during his comments, he didn’t outright confirm or deny the talk of a cut in orders, adding, ”Even if a particular data point were factual, it would be impossible to accurately interpret the data point as to what it meant for our overall business, because the supply chain is very complex and we obviously have multiple sources for things.”

He continued, “Yields might vary, supplier performance can vary, the beginning inventory positions can vary, I mean, there’s just an ordinate long list of things that would make any single data point not a great proxy for what’s going on.”

His comments may have left analysts none the wiser, but some investors, looking at the results for the quarter as a whole, saw fit to offload at least some of their stock. After-hours trading on Wednesday saw Apple shares fall over 10 percent to around $460 – their lowest value in about a year and a figure well below their $700+ peak back in September.

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