According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has cut orders for iPhone 5 components due to "weaker-than-expected demand" for the device.

Citing "people familiar with the situation", the Journal claims that Apple has cut its orders of iPhone 5 screens for the January-March quarter, for instance, by half. If the rumors are true, they suggest that the phone isn't selling as well as Apple anticipated-or, more unlikely, that its plans are changing.

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 U.S. 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.

In the 2012 third quarter, Apple held 14.6% of world-wide smartphone shipments, down from a peak of 23% in the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, according to IDC.

Samsung's share, meanwhile, rose to 31.3% in the third quarter of 2012, compared with 8.8% in the third quarter of 2010.

The Korean company said earlier this month that it expects to report another record operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2012, capping its best year ever amid strong sales of its Galaxy line of smartphones. The company expects an operating profit equivalent to between $8.1 billion and $8.5 billion for the three months ended in December.

Looks like the Galaxy S IV was received 40% higher than the Galaxy S III did when it first came out in UK. Phones4U shared this information based on the number of customers who had their names listed to get hold of this much-talked about phone. An executive of the mobile retailer further said that the Galaxy S 4 has received the "most number of pre-registrations of any other smartphone" that were introduced this year. He even added that it could even be the best-selling smartphone this year.

Just recently, Samsung announced that its former flagship phone has already reached 50 million sales since it has been formally introduced in March last year. Prior to S 4's launch, Samsung announced that it aims to sell 100 million units of the Galaxy S IV and they are possibly on the way to doing so. If they could sustain this kind of interest in the S 4, then it's highly likely that they'll achieve this goal. Galaxy S IV units will ship on April and already, people have lined up to be the first to get the device.

Samsung released an official statement explaining the global delay in the delivery of the Samsung Galaxy S 4. Some carriers are even offering free credit for those who will wait for the device even further in May. According to the Company, this happened because of "overwhelming global demand" for the said smartphone.

official statement released by Samsung:

Due to overwhelming global demand of Galaxy S4, the initial supply may be limited. We expect to fulfill inventory to meet demands in the coming weeks.

Pre-order for the Galaxy S 4 was also stellar where most if not all of the carriers sold out their stocks even before the phone is released and just recently, Samsung admitted to the limited production of the Exynos processor, which is possibly why the total number of supposed Galaxy S 4 fell short.

T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon have all released statements about the delay on the release of the phone. Pre-order customers are naturally not happy about this but if there's someone who's rejoicing at the S 4 delay, it's HTC One. It has recently shipped 300K units last month and this gives it ample time to capture more of the market before Samsung Galaxy S 4 takes it all away.

Source: bloomberg