Apple faces "major shortages" of iPhone 14, analyst says - CBS News

2 years ago 33

Planning to bargain Apple's shiny caller iPhone 14 arsenic Black Friday kicks disconnected the vacation buying season? Good luck. The instrumentality is successful highly abbreviated proviso some online and astatine the company's retail outlets, according to Wedbush expert Dan Ives.

"We judge request for iPhone 14 units into the all-important Black Friday vacation play is mode up of proviso and could origin large shortages starring into Christmas season," helium said successful a study connected Friday.

Blame COVID. A renewed outbreak of the disease successful China has slowed accumulation astatine FoxConn, the electronics shaper that assembles iPhones for Apple. China's "zero-COVID" argumentation isn't helping, either. Authorities reported grounds precocious COVID-19 lawsuit numbers successful mainland China for the 2nd consecutive time Friday. The surging caseload has prompted caller and spreading residential lockdowns, arsenic good arsenic concern shutdowns successful aggregate large cities.

Apple CEO Tim Cook connected newest Apple features, the system and what’s next 06:24

"The zero-COVID China shutdowns successful Foxconn person been a large gut punch to Apple this 4th and we judge person taken astir 5% of iPhone 14 units retired of the proviso concatenation and frankincense putting Cupertino successful a 'major shortage' heading into the adjacent month," Ives said.

He expects Apple to merchantability astir 8 cardinal iPhones implicit the Black Friday weekend, down from 10 cardinal a twelvemonth ago.

Labor strife astatine FoxConn this week is creating different headache for Apple. A quality implicit wage and moving conditions astatine the company's mill successful Zhengzou successful cardinal China sparked employee protests. The Taiwanese institution was forced to apologize connected Thursday aft constabulary roughed up workers, blaming the wage quality connected a "technical error" successful adding caller employees.

"If Zhengzhou remains astatine little capableness the adjacent fewer weeks and continues to spot the unrest physique with workers, this would origin wide large iPhone Pro shortages into the all-important Christmas clip period, particularly successful the U.S.," Ives said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report