“While leading smartphone vendors, such as Apple, Samsung and many China brands, are rushing to launch smartphones with twin-lens or four-lens cameras, upstream optical lens players in the supply chains across the Taiwan Strait, including Largan Precision, Sunny Optical and Shenzhen O-Film Tech are busy with massive shipments in the second half of 2017, according to industry sources,” Sammi Huang and Willis Ke report for DigiTimes.
“The sources said that Apple, scheduled to debut its newest smartphone model iPhone 8 in September, has since July moved to secure massive supply of camera lens modules from Taiwan-based upstream suppliers Largan Precision and Genius Electronics Optical while ensuring timely shipments of finished models from downstream assemblers Foxconn Electronics and Pegatron,” Huang and Ke report. “This has made the business records of all related makers in the iPhone supply chain trend upward all the way in the second half of the year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We hope Apple suppliers are currently churning out as many new iPhones are they can possibly assemble because Apple will easily sell every last one of them. Apple likely won’t achieve supply-demand balance until many months after launch – quite possibly it’ll take multiple quarters to catch up to demand.
There are still a number of analysts who believe iPhone sales will be subdued and there will be no ‘super cycle.’ As far as China is concerned, I think sales won’t be great because so many consumers are only interested in WeChat and they don’t need a $1000 iPhone to use that app. Almost no one in India will be buying any iPhones when they can purchase $100 Android smartphones. Apple will simply have to target as many wealthy countries as possible and let Android take the rest.
Has there been any set number of iPhones Apple has to sell immediately in order for the iPhone to be considered successful? Are they going to use ‘first-weekend’ sales as an overall future sales barometer? I suppose they don’t measure queue lines anymore to assess iPhone sales. I hate it when Wall Street does that kind of crap. If Apple can’t fulfill immediate demand, Wall Street will start some BS about how any production delays will be disastrous for Apple.
However many phones they sell, there’s always a number larger that they COULD HAVE sold and will this be a disappointment and failure. Primarily because those two words combined with iPhone yields a LOT of clicks.
China is interested in status. Anyone there who can afford it will buy the new top iPhone, as long as it’s obvious at a glance that they have the new phone. This is also true for places like Indonesia and Thailand. “Gangnam” Koreans too will be buying, especially now that the Samsung chief is going to jail, making it socially easier to not buy a Samsung.
Depends on how Apple prices the models.
If Apple stuns analysts and pundits alike, and comes in with the same pricing structure, Apple will indeed struggle to meet demand for at least a full quarter, perhaps two.
However, if Apple jacks the price of iPhone 8 to $999, it will indeed stop any sort of “super cycle” and Cook will have a massive brick move on his hands.
If Apple splits the baby, and sells the iPhone 7S for $699, the iPhone 7S Plus for $799, and the entry iPhone 8 for $899, Apple will have walked itself off the ledge and should find a nice balance of sales – and margin – all around.
I think it would be smart to price it considerably higher. Apple has created their own “problem” by selling so many phones. They haven’t been able to include technology until they know they can secure a quarter of a billion parts.
By pricing it high enough they can reduce demand to, say, a few tens of millions, it allows them to adopt new technology more quickly, and then by next year that technology can be integrated into the “regular” product line. It’ll be even better than usual because they’d have had a year’s experience under their belt.
I think it’d be a great strategy. And any complaints that the best tech is not in the regular phone, well, it wouldn’t be available at all for another year unless they did that.
The new iPhone will be more expensive for many reasons.
1. You have the ‘I can afford it and you can’t’ people who will always want something out of reach of the everyday people.
2. You have the numbers Apple needs to produce which are epic and not exactly possible any more so pricing out groups raises their margins with no loss in the amount they can sell over time.
if they raise the price they can also structure their iPhone line in a way that allows them to spend what ever is needed to create the newest iPhone without a cost concern and later on lower the price say a year later when parts get cheeper and the new iPhone is being released at the higher price.
I am personally amazed by the price of a $1000 phone when you can buy a computer but its horses for courses I suppose and if the demand is there then who am I to compare others choices.
The iPhone is now a mature product that can do most things on any model so the need to be changing it is less about it being an essential upgrade and more about your stature in the world as we live in a very fake world where everyone wants to look like they have made it and show they can afford expensive items like the newest most expensive iPhone.