iPhone 5 capacity improving, Apple forecast to sell 46.5M phones in Dec. quarter
Despite recent comments from Foxconn admitting difficulty in manufacturing the iPhone 5, there are reportedly signs that Apple's capacity is "much improved."
Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee revealed in a note to investors on Thursday that his checks within Apple's supply chain have found that Apple has significantly improved its iPhone 5 production capacity since the device first launched in late September.
With supply constraints of the iPhone 5 expected to ease, Wu believes Apple will sell 46.5 million total iPhone units in the company's December quarter. That would be a major quarter-over-quarter increase from the 26.9 million iPhone units Apple shipped in the preceding September quarter.
Wu's analysis was issued in response to comments from Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou, who revealed this week that his company has struggled to produce the iPhone 5 for Apple. He admitted that his company has been "falling short of meeting the huge demand."
According to Wu, the supply chain bottleneck for the iPhone 5 has since moved from components to the assembly of the device itself.
Reports have claimed that the iPhone 5's in-cell touch panel and aluminum chassis have caused quality control issues for both Apple and Foxconn. One unnamed source from Foxconn said in October that the iPhone 5 is "the most difficult device" the company has ever been tasked with assembling.
Last week, a poll of U.S. carriers found that iPhone 5 constraints still exist at Verizon and AT&T, America's two largest wireless providers. However, it was also discovered that supply of the iPhone 5 was increasing at Sprint, the third-largest carrier in the nation.
Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee revealed in a note to investors on Thursday that his checks within Apple's supply chain have found that Apple has significantly improved its iPhone 5 production capacity since the device first launched in late September.
With supply constraints of the iPhone 5 expected to ease, Wu believes Apple will sell 46.5 million total iPhone units in the company's December quarter. That would be a major quarter-over-quarter increase from the 26.9 million iPhone units Apple shipped in the preceding September quarter.
Wu's analysis was issued in response to comments from Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou, who revealed this week that his company has struggled to produce the iPhone 5 for Apple. He admitted that his company has been "falling short of meeting the huge demand."
According to Wu, the supply chain bottleneck for the iPhone 5 has since moved from components to the assembly of the device itself.
Reports have claimed that the iPhone 5's in-cell touch panel and aluminum chassis have caused quality control issues for both Apple and Foxconn. One unnamed source from Foxconn said in October that the iPhone 5 is "the most difficult device" the company has ever been tasked with assembling.
Last week, a poll of U.S. carriers found that iPhone 5 constraints still exist at Verizon and AT&T, America's two largest wireless providers. However, it was also discovered that supply of the iPhone 5 was increasing at Sprint, the third-largest carrier in the nation.
Comments
Cook has to figure out how to ramp up production to squeeze more than 50 million iPhone 5s into users hands.
Not that 46 million phones is a small number by any means but that includes all iPhones.
Yeah, go Apple.
I'm still waiting for my iPhone 5 to arrive.
Like normal people would really say, "Gee, I could get a Samsung phone right now, but I would rather wait a month for an iPhone."
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Good luck catching that number, Samsung.
I think they can smoothly see their way to lying about the number of phones they sold, just like every other quarter.
I think this is the same number Shaw Wu was predicting back in Sept, so apparently he hasn't changed his estimate. I guess he thinks the capacity issues are much ado about nothing.
I returned my 64GB for a 16GB model + iTunes Match and still have more than half my free space remaining. Really it was a dumb move on my part (should have just kept the 64GB after I made the purchase) but that's another story.
Interesting to note from article where their bottlenecks were. I had assumed, given the reported altercations at some Foxconn assembly plants, that the bottleneck was in the final assembly. But this article says they were having component supply problems. Quite a difference and would mean that the prior bottlenecks would be amendable to standard quality control tasks such as tolerances, temperature, chemical, material purity, etc of automated assembly systems, and the solutions would be in hands of highly skilled scientists and engineers.
Final assembly woes would be quite different, and would be constrained by human tolerances, and less amenable to control by engineering.
For a company doing SO WELL, AAPL is getting hammered on the stock market as of late. It's a joke.
Panic is created by short term goal of investors to milk as much profit as they can. If you have long term view Apple is fantastic investment. Apple is creative company and they will never ruin value of brand by simply competing with price or volume. 2013 will be another sucessful year for Apple. They did not NFC for a reason. One of the major issue with current NFC technology is security. Once Apple integrate multi layer security technology to iDevices pastic car or checkbook will become thing of past. Hang in there for a while.
Panic is created by short term goal of investors to milk as much profit as they can. If you have long term view Apple is fantastic investment. Apple is creative company and they will never ruin value of brand by simply competing with price or volume. 2013 will be another sucessful year for Apple. They did not included NFC so far for a reason. One of the major issue with current NFC technology is security concern. Once Apple integrate multi layer security technology to iDevices plastic card or checkbook will become thing of past. Hang in there for a while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple1000
Panic is created by short term goal of investors to milk as much profit as they can. If you have long term view Apple is fantastic investment. Apple is creative company and they will never ruin value of brand by simply competing with price or volume. 2013 will be another sucessful year for Apple. They did not included NFC so far for a reason. One of the major issue with current NFC technology is security concern. Once Apple integrate multi layer security technology to iDevices plastic card or checkbook will become thing of past. Hang in there for a while.
K, thanks.
iTV :-)
The supply is getting better because all those folks that had to have the iPhone now have it but the production capacity is still as high.
Same game is and will play with the iPads, 13 inch rMBP, iMacs etc
A lot of them do say that, which is great for Apple
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland
For a company doing SO WELL, AAPL is getting hammered on the stock market as of late. It's a joke.
Didn't you here? Steve Jobs died and he alone invented and innovated every single thing Apple did. Not a single person in the company had a concept of design but him so Apple will never ever again be able to come out with a new product.
That is the logic in Wall Street right now. The sad part is, I expect between 70-90 million iOS devices for the December quarter and Wall Street will see that as a failure. The P/E will drop to 9 or so while AMZN will go into the undefined P/E range (posting a total loss for the 4 preceding quarters) and their stock will sky-rocket on the news.
Go figure.
64 is "too much," but 16 seems way too low-- but everybody's needs are different. Do you replace every year-- that is about the only justification I could make for the smaller size.
Should I even try to use history as a basis for not jumping? Traditionally AAPL is down faster than the market, and jumps back while the bad companies are still falling.
Who made the comment about Zacky and his prediction (Zacky says $1000 so he said $500)? Looks like it might come true, although I expected a capitulation at $550.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple1000
Panic is created by short term goal of investors to milk as much profit as they can. If you have long term view Apple is fantastic investment. Apple is creative company and they will never ruin value of brand by simply competing with price or volume. 2013 will be another sucessful year for Apple. They did not NFC for a reason. One of the major issue with current NFC technology is security. Once Apple integrate multi layer security technology to iDevices pastic car or checkbook will become thing of past. Hang in there for a while.
I doubt security of NFC is a problem. NFC has a very short distance (4cm or less), so one is protected from distant hacking. A key reason for Apple is the need to add a third antenna, acting as an induction coil. As an antenna, the amount of wire required is 11m. I wouldn't be surprised if Bluetooth 4 is being pushed as an alternative to current NFC/RFID.
Another reason NFC was not in the iPhone 5 is the technology is not ubiquitous and there are still battles raging within NFC creating multiple incompatible NFC protocols -- a betamax vs VHS battle -- who's going to win?
It is meaningless and waste of time to feel panic if no actual numbers are revealed .