“Initial shipments of Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone X are expected to total around 20 million units, only half the planned amount for this year, The Nikkei has learned,” Kotaro Hosokawa, Debby Wu, and Emi Okada report for Nikkei Asian Review.
“At the beginning of mass production, defects occurred in the bonding process for the OLED panels, and although the problem was largely resolved around July, problems continued in assembly of the face authentication module,” Hosokawa, Wu, and Okada report. “Manufacturers were only able to improve the first pass yield — the number of good units — toward the end of September.”
Hosokawa, Wu, and Okada report, “The iPhone X is currently being produced at a rate of 10 million units per month, but with the sales scheduled to begin on Nov. 3, Apple is likely to only provide 20 million units this year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The report also states that Apple is working with other manufacturers for needed components and unit assembly volumes could improve rapidly. Still, iPhone X is likely to be one of the most coveted products in Apple’s history with demand far, far, far outstripping supply well into 2018.
Again, this is the price of the bleeding edge.
SEE ALSO:
Analyst: Apple’s iPhone supercycle morphs into a ‘super-long’ iPhone cycle – October 23, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook: The ‘operations genius’ who never has enough products to sell at launch – October 23, 2017
Apple, Foxconn executives to meet amid iPhone X production strain; Facial recognition component issue persists, unlikely to be resolved soon – October 20, 2017
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple will only have 2-3 million iPhone X units available at launch – October 20, 2017
You may not get your iPhone X until February or March 2018 – September 28, 2017
Apple’s latest iPhone X production woes blamed on Romeo and Juliet – September 27, 2017
Still think its fake news, who’s going to risk issues with Apple if they keep leaking to the press.
These “analysts” don’t seem to be able to do basic math. He states that yields hit goals “toward the end of September” and that the run rate is 10 M / month. “End of September” to the end of the year is 3 months @ 10 M / month = 30 M, right?
Nah, devices being made in Dec won’t ship this year.
You’re saying that a device that rolls off of the assembly line on Dec 1 won’t ship within 30 days? No high-volume manufacturer (such as Foxconn) allows finished goods inventory to pile up. Everything is JIT and they want finished goods to clear the shipping dock as quickly as possible so they can book the revenue.
I’ll concede that those manufactured in the afternoon of 12/31 may not ship by midnight, but the rest will all clear the shipping dock.
Pipeline Tim.
This guy is as overrated as Derek Jeter was at short.
Everyday, street vendor minded Timmy has been finding that he had a wishful thinking about his ability to squeeze more undue money from Apple fans by hyping the X. Now he is convinced that X won’t be such a super cycle mega hit as he wished. Consumers are so much smarter than his cunning tricks. Moral of this story? Don’t hype. Don’t pass a buck to suppliers inability, which may or may not exist. Just calmly produce what you can produce, without hype, and everything would be just fine.
I don’t understand these whiners: apple is selling the most advanced smartphone, with technologies that will not be match by others even in two years (see touch ID). It is more than obvious that this requires an enormous assembly effort, and many problems to be solved.
On the other hand, the same losers would complain if Apple does not innovate.
Guys, get yourselves a life.
This shortage is expected, actually. Apple doesn’t want a plethora of iPhones cluttering shelves and filling warehouses. Best make just enough, just enough. Better to have just enough than too many.