APPLE shares fell 2.4 per cent on Thursday following reports out of Taiwan that the tech giant has slashed orders for the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus by nearly 50 per cent for the rest of the year.

The production cuts are another blow for the brand new iPhone 8, which earlier in the week was reportedly being outsold by last year’s iPhone 7.

Despite having the fastest processor and best camera ever put into an iPhone, plus featuring wireless charging for the first time, the iPhone 8 hasn’t been getting consumers into stores at the rate Apple is accustomed to.

Much of this can be attributed to the fact the handset is very similar in appearance to the iPhone 7, which sells for $A190 less and can still hold its own against the market’s current offerings.

Plus, the shadow of the looming iPhone X appears to be tamping down interest in the iPhone 8. The iPhone X, which goes on sale Nov. 8, features an all-new design with an edge-to-edge OLED screen and revolutionary facial recognition technology.

Early adopters appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the iPhone 8, which rolled into stores in late September, just weeks ahead of the game-changing iPhone X.

Apple has never cut production of an iPhone so early in the cycle, according to Taiwan’s Economic Daily News, which first reported on the cutback.

Shares of the Cupertino, Calif., company closed at $155.98.

Who's Buying the iPhone 8? Who's Buying the iPhone 8?

Since release, some iPhone 8 users reporting the device is splitting open when charging.

Late last month an iPhone 8 Plus owner in Taiwan said her phone broke open while charging after buying it just five days earlier.

A second report of an iPhone 8 busting open came from Japan, with the customer claiming the device was already broken when it arrived in the box.

In the past week, Canadian man Anthony Wu also reported his battery swelling after being put on charge, causing his iPhone to split open along the edges of the device.

Meanwhile The Guardian has reported the same problem effecting a user in Greece and there has also been a report of the “splitting” defect to come out of Hong Kong.

The iPhone 8 was released on September 22 and is the first iPhone to have wireless charging technology but the issue only appears to occur when the phone is being charged with the regular lightning cord.

Although it’s still early days, the problem seems to be very rare.

Apple has not said much about the apparent defect but a spokesman said the company was aware of the reported incidences, and was looking into them.

It’s not the first time the consumer tech giant has had issues with one of its new handset models. When the iPhone 6 was released in 2014 there were multiple reports of the phone being susceptible to bending, leading to the hashtag #bendgate trending on social media.

The splitting issue pales in comparison to the battery-related issue faced by Apple’s main rival Samsung last year which was forced to recall the global stock of its Galaxy Note 7, costing the company about $6.5 billion.