What you need to know
- Apple has been surprised by the demand for iPhone 12 Pro.
- It's struggling to keep up with the manufacturing requirements.
- It's pulling parts from iPad production to try and make up the shortfall.
Apple is reportedly so surprised by the level of demand for iPhone 12 Pro that it's had to repurpose parts that were supposed to be put into iPads just to keep up with manufacturing requirements.
According to a Nikkei report, demand has been considerably stronger than Apple's forecast, leaving it short of handsets for sale. As a result, it's pulling parts from iPad production to try and ramp things up a notch.
Demand for the iPhone 12 Pro has been much stronger than Apple anticipated. Making matters worse, the company has been hit by supply constraints for some components, such as power chips and lidar components used for depth-sensing imaging functions, Nikkei Asia learned. In response, Apple has reallocated some components intended for iPads to the iPhone 12 Pro, two people familiar with the matter said.
As a result, iPad production has now been impacted as well.
Apple is said to be trying to get more iPhones – of all configurations – onto shelves as quickly as possible.
To fill the empty space on shelves, Apple has asked suppliers to prepare more than 20 million units of iPhone 11, iPhone SE and iPhone XR handsets from October through the year-end for holiday shopping season and early next year. That is equivalent to more than a quarter of the orders Apple placed for the new iPhone 12 series this year, which is around 75 million to 80 million units, people who have direct knowledge of the matter told Nikkei Asia.
While stock shortages around an iPhone launch are nothing new, Apple is dealing with unprecedented issues this time around thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. That's a situation that's unlikely to change any time soon, too.
