Yesterday, Bloomberg decided to fabricate a story about supposedly declining iPad mini demand, citing comments from the CEO of Pegatron (one of Apple’s manufacturing partners). We chose not to report on their claim, finding such a drastic drop in iPad mini demand rather unlikely.
Today, Pegatron CEO Jason Cheng called them out, stating that they fabricated the story, and that he never made any such claim about iPad mini demand.
From Bloomberg’s post:
Pegatron Corp. (4938), the Taipei-based maker of Apple Inc. (AAPL) devices, forecast its biggest drop in consumer-electronics revenue in six quarters as iPad Mini demand falls.
A decline in revenue from the iPad Mini “is more on demand, while price has been stable,” Pegatron Chief Executive Officer Jason Cheng said. “Not just tablets, also e-books and games consoles, almost every item is moving in a negative direction.”
From Fortune, quoting Pegatron CEO Jason Cheng:
“We held our Institutional Investors Conference yesterday, and gave out a guidance of our 2Q13 business outlook… The category of Consumer Electronic Product includes game consoles, LCD-TV, e-paper readers, tablet products, and some others. We put all tablet products in this category, but have never broken down to detail numbers for specific products nor customers.
“After the meeting, one reporter from Bloomberg approached me, 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 “more on demand, while price has been stable”…, “almost every item is moving in a negative direction”…; “Not just tablets, also e-books and games consoles”. But I did not say anything associated with any specific products.
“‘No indication, nor hint for specific products or customers‘ has been our principle and guideline for any public events such as investors conference. There are always speculations after these meetings.
“Thank you for the mail to clarify.”
That’s what you get for making shit up and pulling phony claims out of your butt. As usual, Jim Dalrymple of The Loop has a refreshingly honest assessment of the situation: “It’s pretty clear that Tim Culpan at Bloomberg went into the conference with an agenda and was going to write a damning article about Apple by hook or by crook. What a fucking douchebag.”
Shame on you, Bloomberg. Lying doesn’t pay.
