Apple crumbles on iPhone XR static

Apple shares fell nearly 4 percent after a report signaled that the tech giant’s new, lower-priced iPhone XR might not be selling as well as expected.

Japanese news service Nikkei reported Monday that Apple has asked its Chinese suppliers, including Foxconn, to halt plans for additional production lines of the newly released iPhone XR, whose price starts at $749 instead of $999 and up for the other iPhones.

The report noted that Apple’s directive translates to about 100,000 fewer iPhone XRs being made each day.

“For the Foxconn side, it first prepared nearly 60 assembly lines for Apple’s XR model, but recently uses only around 45 production lines as its top customer said it does not need to manufacture that many by now,” the Nikkei quoted one source as saying.

Apple’s iPhone XR, which boasts the iPhone X’s edge-to-edge display — albeit using LCD pixels instead of the X’s high- resolution OLED screen — was widely expected to fuel a massive wave of upgrades from iPhone 6S or earlier models.

The Nikkei report comes days after Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple warned in its quarterly earnings report that sales for the crucial holiday quarter would likely miss expectations.

Apple also stoked worries about iPhone sales last week when it said that, beginning this quarter, it will no longer break down unit sales for iPhones, iPads and Macs.