“A key supplier to Apple Inc. said Wednesday it is shipping ‘far fewer’ new iPhones than the Cupertino, Calif. company has requested, because some quality standards still can’t be met due to design-related production difficulties,” Aries Poon reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Supply-chain problems have led to a long wait for the iPhone 5 since the device’s late-September launch, analysts said,” Poon reports. “The scarcity of the phones has been weighing on Apple’s share price as well, as investors are concerned Apple may not be able to meet consumer demand in the near future, weighing on its earnings.”
“‘Market demand is very strong, but we just can’t really fulfill Apple’s requests,’ Taipei-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Chairman Terry Gou told reporters on the sidelines of a local economic forum,” Poon reports. “Some labor-rights groups have said stricter quality control on the iPhone 5 has put more pressure on production-line workers in China. Mr. Gou also said Wednesday he was in China a few days ago to give moral support to workers there.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tim Cook, “operations genius” (who oddly never has enough supply to meet demand and routinely leaves untold sales on the table with each new product launch).
Just stating the facts.
We love you, Tim, but either you’re letting Jony run wild designing things that cannot be mass produced easily enough or you’re dropping the ball in some other way(s). What’s the deal?
Just once we’d like to see a properly executed iPhone and/or iPad production ramp with adequate supply at launch.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
