“The bigger you become, the bigger the problems you face,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “History shows that every empire reaches a point at which its infrastructure begins to become stretched, after which it tends to shrink. Resource allocation is important, and it seems Apple may be facing a few problems in this.”
“Recent reports claimed Sharp has been delayed in delivering new displays for the iPhone 5. A report this morning once again speculates the deal between Sharp and Hon Hai/Foxconn has hit several hurdles, leaving the Japanese company with no choice except to mortgage all its domestic offices and factories in order to remain in business until that deal is done,” Evans writes. “Apple management have previously claimed each generation of iPhone sells approximately double the total amount of the previous generation. In the case of iPhone 5, this leaves the company attempting to source components for some 170 million devices in the next 12 months.”
Evans writes, “However, with a larger church of manufacturers chasing up similar components, Apple suppliers have options if they choose to find more lucrative deals. This is leading the company to widen its supply chain. These ideas are supported by Apple’s well-recorded struggles to replace Samsung at many levels of its component supply stream. That the company has so far been unable to completely replace its smartphone foe hints that there’s a finite limit to component availability.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If Tim Cook is anything, he’s an operations genius. If component supplies are the issue, Apple has the perfect guy on the job.
