14 DAY TRIAL // Back in November, Apple came up with an announcement that you don’t see too often. The company confirmed massive production disruptions hitting its Chinese suppliers, particularly due to the restrictions that were enforced by the local government, so Apple acknowledged that it wouldn’t be able to ship as many iPhones as it would have otherwise planned to.
The company warned that the waiting time for a new iPhone could increase substantially, and this is precisely what happened.
Getting a Pro during the holiday season was quite a challenge, with the standard iPhone 14 and the Plus becoming the only new iPhones available for same-day delivery due to lackluster demand.
Speaking with analysts after the earnings reports this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that all production problems have already been resolved.
This means production has been aligned with demand, so now Apple is building iPhones at the pace that it planned to reach from the very beginning.
“From a supply point of view, we did see disruption from early November through most of December. And from a supply chain point of view, we're now at a point where production is what we need it to be. And so the problem is behind us,” Cook explained.
“In terms of going forward in the supply chain, we build our products everywhere. There are component parts coming from many different countries in the world, and the final assembly coming from three countries in the world on just iPhone. And so we continue to optimize it. We'll continue to optimize it over time and change it to continue to improve.”
What is more difficult to predict is whether any production disruption would occur throughout the year. Cook suggests this is one of the reasons Apple is also focusing on other production sites, as this is the only way to prevent supply issues due to issues hitting a certain region.