Pegatron CEO Jason Cheng is adamantly denying claims that he made comments regarding demand for the Apple iPad Mini.
A Bloomberg report recently suggested that Cheng said Apple’s iPad mini demand was weaker than first believed. Cheng now tells Fortune that he never made any comments about Apple product demand during the Pegatron Institution Investors conference.
Cheng says the reporter came to him “trying to dig out detail numbers about some specific product. I clearly refused to comment on specific products, nor customers, even though he continued with other questions. I did say those words that he quotes me in the article… but I did not say anything associated with any specific products.”
Cheng then calls the report pure “speculation.” In the original report, Cheng was quoted as saying that iPad mini revenue drops are based “more on demand, while price has been stable.”
In another report, Reuters claims that Pegatron is actually increasing its Chinese workforce by upwards of 40 percent during the second half of 2013.
With 100,000 workers already employed by the company, a 40 percent increase would mean nearly 40,000 new jobs. Analysts believe that the hiring increase could be associated with the new iPhone 5S and low-cost iPhone models, which have yet to be revealed.
Pegatron estimates that 60 percent of its revenue will arrive in the second half of the year. The company’s estimates are right in line with an expected June or July reveal date for the the new Apple smartphones.
With Apple likely to release its new phones in September, it will be interesting to see if customers still flock to the devices or if more rumors of demand problems continue to surface.
Do you think Apple products still have the same luster they brought to the mobile market when the first iPhone released in 2007.
