Apple cuts iPhone part order

Apple's orders for iPhone 5 screens for the January-March quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had previously planned to order, two of the people said.

The Cupertino, Calif., company has also cut orders for components other than screens, according to one of the sources.
Apple notified the suppliers of the order cut last month, the people said.

The move indicates that sales of the new iPhone haven't been as strong as previously anticipated and demand may be waning. It comes as the company has been facing greater challenges from Samsung Electronics Co. and other makers of smartphones powered by Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

While Apple has set the agenda for the smartphone market since it released its first iPhone in 2007, South Korea's Samsung, which sells many Android-based models at various price points, has already overtaken the US company as the world's largest smartphone vendor by market share. Demand is also growing for inexpensive smartphones from Chinese makers such as Huawei Technologies Co.