TAIPEI – Production of some MacBooks and iPads has been delayed due to global component shortages, Nikkei Asia has learned, in a signal that even Apple, with its massive purchasing power, is not immune to unprecedented supply crisis.
The shortage of chips has caused delays in a key step in MacBook production: the assembly of components on printed circuit boards before final assembly, sources informed on the matter told Nikkei Asia. Meanwhile, some iPad mounts have been delayed due to a shortage of screens and display components, sources said.
As a result of the delay, Apple has withdrawn some of the component orders from both devices from the first half of this year to the second half, according to people. Sources and industry experts say the delays are a sign that chip shortages are getting more severe and may further affect smaller tech players.
Apple is known for its experience in managing one of the most complicated supply chains in the world and for how quickly it can mobilize suppliers. This has helped the company withstand a global component shortage that is already shrinking carmakers and electronics makers.
Production plans for Apple’s iconic iPhones so far have not been affected by the supply shortage, although the supply of some components for the devices is “quite tight,” according to two sources. Overall, component shortages remain a supply chain problem for Apple and have yet to have any impact on product availability for consumers, Nikkei has learned.
Apple declined to comment on the story.
Apple’s rival Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest smartphone maker, recently confirmed that chip shortages could be problematic for the company during the April-June period, adding that it counts with teams of employees working 24 hours a day to solve the problem.
Big players like Apple, Samsung Electronics and HP have great power for suppliers to demand that their orders be given priority when capacity is limited, said Peter Hanbury, a partner at consulting firm Bain & Co. “They have also developed a sophisticated supply chain and purchasing capabilities, including collaborative planning with semiconductor manufacturing partners and strong visibility into where their products are manufactured so they can see ahead of the shortage like this,” he said. to say.
Now, however, “demand for some of these large product categories has exceeded total available capacity,” Hanbury added. “They now face the same long – term challenges [as their chip suppliers and production partners] to add manufacturing capacity, which requires years and billions of dollars. “
Apple sells about 200 million iPhones, more than 20 million MacBooks, 19 million iPads and more than 70 million pairs of AirPods a year, all ranked in the top five in the world in their respective consumer electronics segments, making the company one of the most powerful contracting forces in the world.
Apple is the fourth largest laptop maker in the world with a market share of 7.6%, following Lenovo Group Holding, HP and Dell in 2020. Apple iPads, meanwhile, are the clear leader in the Tablet market, with a 32.5% share last year, followed by Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo and Amazon, showed IDC data.
The fact that the supply crisis has spread to MacBooks and iPads, two key elements of Apple, shows that component shortages remain a serious problem and could be a more serious blow to technology agents with less power. of trading and supply chain management experience that according to Nikkei Asia the American company, industry executives.
“We don’t really see the end of this shortage, and things could be even worse, towards the end of the June quarter, as some smaller tech players could run out of some critical inventories to build their products and need to get back into production, ”said Wallace Gou, president and CEO of Silicon Motion, a NAND flash memory controller chip developer that supplies Samsung, Western Digital, Micron, Kingston and many others.
PC demand continues to be strong this year, as the economy of staying at home caused by the coronavirus pandemic continues to flourish. According to research agency IDC, the global PC market will grow by more than 18% this year, after expanding at a rapid pace of almost 13% last year.
However, the United States, Japan and Germany have called on Taiwan and South Korea, the two key chip-making economies, to help prioritize chips for the auto industry, which is crucial for the world economy. This has reduced semiconductor production for consumer electronics and computing products.