Yesterday those from Qualcomm announced that they cannot manufacture enough baseband 4G LTE chips for mobile phone manufacturers, so some of the future products will have to be launched later than originally anticipated. Those from Qualcomm have already taken measures to solve the problems that prevent them from producing their chips, but the delay in the delivery of the component to mobile phone manufacturers suggests that even the new iPhone could be launched in the fall. Apple uses Qualcomm chips in the iPad 3 and iPhone 4S, and the new iPhone would use a new model of a 4G LTE chip produced by this company.
"At this stage we cannot secure enough supply to meet the increasing demand we are experiencing," Chief Executive Paul Jacobs told analysts on a conference call, adding that the issue would limit revenue growth this year. [...] "Demand went so far ahead of availability that we've decided to start spending more money to get more supply as soon as possible," [Chief Financial Officer Bill Keitel] told Reuters. "Any time we can't make a customer totally happy I'm going to worry. You don't want to give a customer a reason to go elsewhere."
I don't know if there were still people who thought that the new iPhone would be launched in the summer, considering that Apple didn't even present iOS 6, but the information published yesterday makes it certain that it will be released in the fall. However, the launch in the fall is not necessarily related to Qualcomm, but to the strategy of the Apple company, which focuses its WWDC on OS X and the presentation of new versions of iOS, and the conferences in the fall no longer focus on iPod Touches, but on iPhone terminals.
