Tim Cook: iPhone supply and demand are "not on the same planet" right now
The message of today's Apple quarterly report was pretty clear: everything is going well. Apple beat estimates and sold a ton of iPhones over the past quarter. Tim Cook didn't go into how many of the new iPhones have been sold, but Cook did make a point to comment on the task of keeping up with demand for the new handsets. Unsurprisingly, Cook claims that Apple is having a tough time keeping up.
The direct quote is obviously a bit more headline worthy:
We're not nearly balanced, we're not close, we're not on the same planet. That said, I'm really confident that supply is going to be great and that's the reason you see incredibly strong guidance that we're giving [for next quarter].
So, basically, Cook is saying that demand is far surpassing supply, but somehow Apple is going to overcome those issues in order to meet expectations for the current quarter. This appears to be something of a mixed message, and also doesn't quite connect with any other reports. If demand isn't "on the same planet" as supply, we would expect to be hearing more reports about the devices being sold out, but we haven't heard anything of the sort since mid-September, when the new iPhones first hit the market.
We're sure that there is solid demand for the new iPhones, and we wouldn't be surprised if the sales figures for this quarter are very strong. But, we'd also say that Cook sounds to be a bit hyperbolic. We've checked around, and the worst iPhone 6 delays are direct through Verizon, but you can get a Verizon iPhone through Best Buy or from Apple without delay. There are delays with the iPhone 6 Plus, but we're not willing to blindly accept that is a matter of high demand, and not Apple simply under-producing the device until it figures out the proper demand level for the new product.
source: AppleInsider
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