Apple’s Cook: Supply Chain Rumors Amount to Squat

For the past few weeks, Apple has been dogged by rumors that waning demand for the iPhone and iPad has caused it to curtail component purchases for those devices. During an earnings call Wednesday afternoon, Apple didn’t comment on any particular rumor, but CEO Tim Cook did offer a few words of caution about paying them too much mind.

“I’d recommend questioning the accuracy of any kind of rumor about build plans,” Cook said. “I’d also stress that even if a particular data point were to be factual it would be impossible to interpret what it really means to our business. Our supply chain is very complex and we have multiple sources for our components. Yields can vary, supplier performance can vary. There’s just a long list of things that would make any single data point not a great proxy for what’s going on.”