“Worries that Apple’s new iPhones will be in short supply for months after its official launch were not eased by Finisar’s disclosure Thursday that it has been delayed in ramping up production of 3D sensors,” Reinhardt Krause reports for Investor’s Business Daily. “Apple’s new iPhones are expected to feature 3D sensors for facial recognition to unlock screens and augmented reality apps. There’s been speculation Lumentum Holding, Germany’s AMS, Finisar and others will provide 3D-related parts to Apple.”
“Finisar late Thursday forecast disappointing October quarter revenue, sending shares down 3.8% in midday trades Friday to 21.15,” Krause reports. “Finisar said due to a manufacturing issue, qualification of lasers for a 3D sensor customer has been delayed from the October quarter to the January quarter. Finisar has not identified Apple as the customer.”
Read more in the full article here.
“One analyst, Tim Savageaux of Northland Capital, pressed Finisar’s CEO, Jerry Rawls, to explain the delay, asking “is there sort of a risk that you’ve missed it here?” Meaning, lost Apple’s business,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s. “Rawls was adamant Finisar hasn’t lost Apple’s business: ‘No, I don’t think there’s a risk that we’ve missed it. But I — we did have to make a change in one of the processes that we run. And that’s was in order to improve the performance of the product, the reliability of the product. It was — it turns out it was a key process parameter. And we had dialed it in a little bit off where it should have been. So we dialed it back, and the results have been terrific. So we’re rolling. And I don’t know if there’s much risk on this.'”
“Most analysts this morning seeming to be giving the company the benefit of the doubt that things are delayed, not lost,” Ray reports. “There are no ratings changes, that I can see, but several price target cuts. I would note other fiber-optic names have not been hit.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Much speculation. Suffice to say, expect OLED iPhone supply to be severely constrained.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
What recent Apple new product release hasn’t been constrained?!
Just a variation on the boring crap that gets written every year, leading up to the iPhone launch. “The sky is falling.”