Apple is weeks away from releasing a new phone without the supply to meet the expected demand.
Apple is said to be staying close to its launch schedule from last year, which could lead to low supply "during the first round of the rollout," resulting in low yield rates, higher costs for manufacturers, and subsequently less volume to deliver to customers. Yuanta Investment Consulting analyst Jeff Pu believes total iPhone 7 builds to be 10 million less than that of the iPhone 6s last year.
According to an industry source:
If Apple sticks to its launch schedule from last year, there may not be enough supply at the beginning, as some suppliers are still trying to fix low yield rates of their components.
In simpler terms, this is expected to be worse than last year’s iPhone 6s shortage. Yuanta Investment Consulting analyst Jeff Pu believes we’ll see about 10 million fewer iPhone 7 builds than we did of the 6s last year, which also caused a fairly significant shortage around the launch period.
"We estimate total iPhone 7 builds to be 74 (million) in 2H16F, compared to 84 (million) for iPhone 6s in 2H15. Together with pricing pressure, we expect most Apple food chain suppliers to see (year-on-year) revenue decline for the rest of the year," Pu wrote in a note dated Aug. 23
Ref:
Although it's true that the iPhone 7 will be a modest update on the iPhone 6s, like every model before it, the 2016 iPhone is expected to see a heavy influx of pre-orders the day it goes live on Apple's website, currently rumored for September 9.
Users will then have to wait a few weeks to get their hands on the Smartphone, with a launch either on September 16 or September 23.
