Apple's COO to meet with Foxconn to discuss iPhone X production delays

In the midst of rumored production problems involving the Apple iPhone X, Apple's Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams plans to meet with the chairman of contract manufacturer Foxconn later this month in Taiwan. While Apple uses a number of different companies to assemble the iPhone and iPad, the iPhone X is being put together exclusively by Foxconn. The latter's chairman, Terry Gou, will discuss with Williams the production delays that could limit the number of iPhone X units available to consumers by launch day, November 3rd.

As we told you earlier today, reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimates that only 2 million to 3 million iPhone X units will have been shipped by Apple by the device's November 3rd launch day. Apple's COO will be in Taiwan to help celebrate the 30th birthday of TSMC on October 23rd. The chip producer is supplying Apple with the A11 Bioniuc chips for the 2017 iPhone models.

Foxconn subsidiary Sharp, along with LG's Innotek unit, is responsible for production of the 3D-sensor used with the TrueDepth Camera. The sensor helps the Face ID face recognition feature work.  While problems with the production of this part negatively affect the number of iPhone X units that roll off the assembly line, Sharp says that yields have picked up. Still, an anonymous tech executive familiar with the situation says that the yield rate is still not high enough to allow the iPhone X to roll off the assembly line at full capacity.

Yuanta Investment Consulting analyst Jeff Pu expects Apple to produce 32 million units of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus during the current fourth calendar quarter of 2017. He believes that Apple is hoping to manufacture 35 million iPhone X handsets. For the first calendar quarter of 2018, Pu sees Apple slashing production of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus by 50% to 16 million units. He sees 39 million iPhone X handsets manufactured for the three months that run through the end of March.

source: NikkeiAsianReview

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