I’m an Apple fanboy and it looks like Apple has definitely stepped up their game this year. But, supply chain issues are definitely still a thing and especially a chip shortage. Are all these new products just Apple iDreams with the current supply chain difficulties?
My guess is that Apple’s money and status as a huge buyer of chips and other products protect it somewhat from shortages.
When Apple announced its Q2 2022 results back in April, they said they expect about a $4-8 billion hit in Q3 due to covid restraints in China as well as silicon supply issues in the Shanghai corridor. This is apparently a fair bit more than it was in Q2, but Q2 constraints were due to just supply shortages, not covid. Q2 was still a record quarter, FWIW.
Of course, those are just financials, not actual sales numbers. Since Apple doesn’t release sales numbers anymore, it’s tough to figure out.
But for the fact that the M2 MacBook Airs aren’t shipping until “next month” (so that could be 7 weeks) and the M2 is only available on the low-end 13 inch MacBook Pro (again, next month), yeah, I’d definitely say constraints are an issue. Several other models that weren’t updated also have shipping estimates of late July.
All that said, they’re still going to sell millions and millions of these things, just not yet, and they’ve seemingly accounted for that.
edit to add
but then again, I guess the M2s aren’t going to show up until Q4 financials if they aren’t out until late July so I guess that part is a little immaterial.
I used to work for a company that manufactured a lot of Apple products. Apple is the 800 pound gorilla in the supply chain. Remember Tim Cook is a supply chain guy, and Apple is probably the best positioned of all high tech brands to be first in line for all components. Of course, Covid and China lockdowns are a wild card. To say it a different way, Apple will probably be the least negatively affected by supply chain woes.
For example, one of the biggest shortages is the chip foundries that make CPU’s. I am 99% sure that Apple has that issue well under control.
Given the premium price points on Apple notebooks, these will largely be air shipped to avoid a big chunk of logistic issues occurring now. These are produced usually in a 2nd or 3rd tier location with an airport that has capacity dedicated to Apple.