During the year 2021, we did not stop mentioning the problems of Apple due to the shortage of chips. This global crisis has affected almost all industries and the Cupertino company has not been spared.
But despite this difficult context, Apple has successfully launched the series iPhone 13 since during the quarter that ended at the end of December, it generated record revenues. And iPhone revenue has seen a significant uptick from the same period in 2020.
New problems in 2022?
Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t seem quite out of the woods yet when it comes to shortages. Indeed, according to an article published recently by the site The Elec, the Cupertino company will soon have a new problem to manage: a drop in the production of OLED screens by its supplier BOE.
This company is one of those that produce screens for the iPhone. And according to The Elec, it would have production problems because of the shortage of chips. This problem would affect the production of this month of February and that of March.
The example site that the production of a Korean company, which supplies display drivers to BOE, would be down. And because of this, BOE would not be able to fulfill all of its orders, as this display driver supplier would prioritize orders from LG, another Apple display supplier.
How will this affect iPhone production?
Thus, until next month, BOE would reduce its production of OLED panels from 2 million units to 3 million units. And moreover, the Chinese company would not be able to deliver to Apple the 40 million OLED panels that would have been planned.
But of course, this information does not come from an official source, caution is always in order. Also, the impact these disruptions will have on iPhone production shouldn’t be overstated, as it’s not BOE or LG, but Samsung Display, that’s the main supplier of iPhone screens. Apple.
In any case, this rumor reminds us that Apple’s problem is not CPU or GPU supply, but disruptions affecting older technologies, used for power controllers or display drivers.
According to a rumor, faced with the shortage, Apple would have voluntarily slowed down the production of the iPad so that the components normally intended for its tablets are used to assemble more iPhones. And during the presentation of its latest quarterly results, Apple announced revenue growth in all categories, except for the iPad.
Indeed, iPad revenues were down 14% from a year earlier. To explain this, the firm mentioned particularly important supply constraints.
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Par : Keleops AG
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