IERI (Yesterday) Apple announced that it sold 5 million iPhone 5 terminals, 1 million more than last year when in the same 3-day period the company sold 4 million iPhone 4S terminals. This year iPhone 5 was launched in 9 countries, compared to only 7 last year, but although Apple set a new sales record, analysts say that figure would have been much higher if Apple had managed to produce more screens. Those from Bloomberg I argue that Apple fails to cover the demand on the market because Sharp could not start the manufacturing process of the new screens built using in-cell technology in time, and LG and Japan Display fail to produce enough of them.
Apple used the technology in the first major iPhone overhaul since 2010 to make the device more svelte, an attribute that helped lure a record 5 million buyers in three days. Yet producing in-cell screens is also more painstaking than earlier screen types, contributing to bottlenecks... Manufacturing enough of those parts for Apple has been challenging for LG and Japan Display, analysts at the London-based financial-services provider said... As manufacturing of in-cell screens improves, Apple may sell 45.2 million iPhones in the December quarter and 170.7 million through next September, Barclays said.
The truth is that Apple could have a major problem with stocks because in its online stores the delivery times for iPhone 5 they increased again reaching 3-4 weeks, and this denotes the fact that the device is "in great demand" among consumers. On Friday, Apple is going to launch the iPhone 5 in another series of countries, but we can expect that the stocks available there will be very small considering that Apple has, just like 2 years ago, extremely big problems in producing enough of many terminals to meet market demand.
I think that only around November - December will Apple manage to produce enough terminals for all those interested, so until then you will have to "fight" to purchase one.
