The last quarter of the year is rumored to be a downer – for chip manufacturers, that is. After all, whispers are going around that Apple as well as HTC are actually reducing their orders for smartphone chipsets simply because they are worried at the way the global economy has soured – especially in the recent months. DigiTimes mentioned that “some handset solution suppliers have indicated that a number of handset vendors, including Apple and HTC, have scaled down their chipset orders for the fourth quarter as compared with the third on concerns of the global economy.”
The majority of smartphone vendors are said to hit their shipment targets for the third quarter – which incidentally ends this September, but orders for parts and components have started to be reduced just in case even more adverse economic conditions occur.
All in all, do bear in mind that this is still a rumor as DigiTimes’ track record has not been always accurate all this while. Still, that doesn’t mean it does not have any reliable sources among the major Asian suppliers and manufacturers, so this could very well be true.