The report claims that the current iPhone production has been slashed by 10% for the first three months of 2019. Apparently Apple had made the request to its suppliers shortly before they revised their earnings. This means that the number of iPhones that Apple could ship has been reduced from 47-48 million to 40-43 million, which represents an overall reduction of over 20% from the 50+ million or so iPhones sold in the same quarter the previous year.
This is actually not the first time we’ve heard that Apple might have cut iPhone production. Back in 2018 there were reports that Apple had already done some production cuts due to there being a lack of demand. This certainly paints a very different picture compared to a few years ago when iPhones were flying off the shelves and where Apple had trouble keeping up with demand.