Apple Stock: Shares Slides Again After Lowered Production Goals, Analyst Downgrade

Shares of Apple’s (AAPL) continued their slide into Monday trading, as possible lukewarm sales for its newest iPhone appear to have weakened investor confidence. Apple shares fell by 1.49 percent in pre-market trading before sliding by more than 3 percent at one point after markets opened.

The downturn for Apple follows a report from Japanese business newspaper Nikkei that parts manufacturers have been given lower-than-expected manufacturing duties. Assembly firms like Foxconn and Pegatron have reportedly killed plans to open up more production lines for the recently released iPhone XR because demand for the phone is lower than Apple initially projected.

Nikkei’s sources said Foxconn, for example, was ready to dedicate 60 assembly lines for the iPhone XR, but only uses about 45 based on demand levels for the phone. That amounts to a decrease of 100,000 units produced daily from what Apple initially ordered, the Japanese newspaper said.

Meanwhile, Rosenblatt Securities became the second firm to downgrade Apple since the iPhone maker’s earnings report last Thursday, according to CNBC. Rosenblatt downgraded Apple from "buy" to "neutral."

In its fourth-quarter earnings report, Apple reported high overall revenue growth, due to a boost from its newer services business. However, the company just missed its iPhone sales projections in terms of units sold. The average price of an iPhone went up but that can be attributed to two of the three new models released this year costing at least $1,000.

On Friday, Apple caused a stir by announcing that in future earning reports it would no longer report iPhone sales figures in terms of units sold, prompting fears that the tech giant believes the iPhone might no longer be a high-volume seller.

In the immediate aftermath of Apple’s change to its reporting structure, the company’s share price lost nearly 6 percent.