Production has finally reached the maximum pace

Nov 26, 2017 07:49 GMT  ·  By

iPhone X production is advancing at the maximum pace, with KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealing in a new note to investors that he expects the fourth quarter of the year to bring better than estimated sales.

Shipping times for the iPhone X have been decreased substantially in the last couple of weeks and orders that were originally projected to be shipped in December were completed a month earlier. Kuo says this is because Foxconn now makes no less than 550,000 iPhone X units every day, up from 50,000 to 100,000 when production started two months ago.

At the same time, it looks like the majority of Apple suppliers has also addressed production struggles and component manufacturing is improving as well.

Strong demand for the iPhone X

The analyst says Career’s LTE antenna production improved no less than 100 percent in the last month, while the dot projection module manufactured by Sharp and LG has reached around 90 percent yield rate. Furthermore, Face ID module production is finally on track, and Kuo claims it’s stable, with no issue experienced whatsoever.

The facial recognition system is believed to have caused particular challenges to Apple and its suppliers, with some sources claiming even that the company lowered the specifications of this particular component to make it possible for partners to improve yield rates. This would have in turn reduced Face ID accuracy, but Apple said this wasn’t true, sticking instead to the same accuracy level as announced.

Kuo says that he now expects sales in the Q1 2018 to be slower than originally anticipated, but this is only because Q4 2017 performance is likely to increase by 10 to 20 percent over the original estimates. In other words, some of the orders which were expected to be completed early next year will actually ship this year, as more iPhone X units are ready.

Furthermore, the analyst says demand for the iPhone X is not at all weak, and claims that shorter shipping times are a result of Apple increasing production of the device, and not of fewer orders.