Apple Inc., cut orders for LCD screens and other iPhone 5 parts this quarter due to weak demand, a further sign that the U.S. company is facing stiff competition from other smartphone market giants, Reuters reported Monday. 

Apple asked Japan Display Inc., Sharp Corp and South Korea's LG Display Co Ltd to halve supplies of LCD panels from an initial order for roughly 65 million screens in January-March, the news report noted citing people close with the situation. The sources also added that Apple cut orders for other iPhone parts as well, as a way to reportedly balance excess inventory.

Shares of the California-based company closed at $520.30 on Friday, Jan. 11, on the Nasdaq but fell more than 4 percent to $498.20 before the bell rang on Monday. The news report added that sales of the iPhone 5, which was released in September, has not brought the company as might success as anticipated. Apple faced strains in their profits among the smartphone market, with South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. being one of their biggest rivals. Other major competitors are makers of smartphones powered by Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

Apple has been a symbol of smartphone revolution since releasing its first iPhone in 2007 but Samsung has become over the years the world's largest smartphone vendor by market share, according to The Wall Street Journal. Samsung took the title of biggest phone maker in 2012 by surpassing Nokia for the first time in more than 14 years.

Apple held 14.6 percent of world-wide smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2012, down from the 23 percent it had in the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012. On the other hand, Samsung's share rose to 31.3 percent in the third quarter of 2012, compared with 8.8 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

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