Apple Ramps Production to 800,000 iPhones a Week?

[FSUSem1noles]

Apple supplier building 800,000 iPhones per week?

The Taiwanese company that handles iPhone assembly, Foxconn, has dramatically increased its production levels, a new report claims. Citing a source "close to Apple with direct knowledge of the numbers," the report suggests that Foxconn is now expected to build some 800,000 iPhone 3Gs per week. This is said to be "above current full capacity" of the company, according to the source, and could be risking quality problems. A number of iPhone owners have been spotting cracks in the casing.

While Foxconn is said to be capable of upgrading production to meet Apple demand, the current rate may be unsustainable, as it would result in over 41 million phones built per year, well over the 25 million lifetime units predicted in a Commercial Times story from April. Apple does intend to ship to at least 70 countries by the end of the year however, and may add more going into 2009.

Talk about mass production.. how could they even go about properly testing the phones for defects before shipping..

[IBradMac]

wow that is a LOT of phones being produced. I would say that is definetly why there has been quality issues. No question.

[MacRumors]

TechCrunch claims that Apple has ramped up iPhone 3G production to a massive 800,000 units per week. They cite a source "with direct knowledge of the numbers".

If true, this would bring Apple's iPhone 3G production and sales well above previous estimates and expectations. An early report claimed that Apple would produce 24-25 million iPhones throughout the life of the product. At a rate of 800,000 iPhones per week, Apple would produce over 40 million devices over the next year. This would also put them well ahead of their goal of selling 10 million iPhones in calendar years 2008.

Apple did sell 1 million of the iPhone 3Gs on its opening weekend, but has not yet offered additional sales numbers. Stock for the iPhone has remained tight weeks after its launch and Apple is expecting to launch the iPhone 3G in 20 additional countries on August 22nd.

Article Link

[MacinDoc]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A345 Safari/525.20)

Way ahead of estimates!

[Small White Car]

Interesting.

I wonder how long they've been running at those numbers. Since week 2 or since yesterday?

Might we get a "5 million sold" announcement from Apple in a month or so? Usually you'd expect to hear about 2 million first, but if it's really going that fast they may hold off until an even bigger number, just to really shock people when it happens.

[MacGeek7]

I saw an article similar to this one over at 9to5Mac and I really like one quote from that article

The report notes this to be "above current full capacity", and warns there may be some quality control issues ahead.

Just what Apple needs...more quality control issues

[Fonzijr1964]

wow good for them!!!

[fluidedge]

well thats all very nice but how many phones do Nokia/Motorola/Samsung make each week? 10m? Apple is still a very small fish in a very big pond

[atluten]

Wow, looks like those price points are indeed a sweet spot for mass adoption.

[Cousin Dirk]

Does this mean that O2 will now start selling the white ones in their stores?

Of course not. Don't be silly.

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Originally Posted by fluidedge

well thats all very nice but how many phones do Nokia/Motorola/Samsung make each week? 10m? Apple is still a very small fish in a very big pond

Not really, I'd say Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung don't make 800,000 of any phone each week. After the razr, I'd venture to guess that the iPhone is the most plentiful cell phone. Apple can easily keep up with those companies you listed, don't worry.

[JML42691]

Wow, that is a ton of iPhones, I suspect that the numbers per week will probably slow down to a lower number though in the future, I just feel that a lot of people that would buy one bought it at launch and that will take away from the numbers buying it later.

[calculus]

Originally Posted by FSUSem1noles

Talk about mass production.. how could they even go about properly testing the phones for defects before shipping..

I doubt that they will ever have tested every phone before shipping. The only way to ensure consistent quality is to design it into the process.

[wronski]

The Opinions of the MacRumors Community:

Phase 1: Apple sucks! They're creating a fictional demand by limiting supply; Apple needs to speed up production.

Apple increases supply.

Phase 2: Apple sucks! Product quality is going way downhill; Apple needs to slow down production.

[dezeinstein]

Quantity: Woo!
Quality: Meh!

[franzmueller]

I wonder where all the produced iphones from last month has gone ? ( maybe they had production problems ? ? in my town shop where I live they received 5 units on launch day ( almost a month ago ? ) and they haven´t received any more ... I call them once a week to ask for the status and I am still nr- 75 at their list .. last week they told me they are over the 350 people waiting to get one ..

If this keeps this way I may wait until Aug 22 and get a officially unlooked one in Gibraltar ( I live 5 km away ).

Time will tell

Saludos

[BlackMax]

Originally Posted by FSUSem1noles

Talk about mass production.. how could they even go about properly testing the phones for defects before shipping..

The won't... The early adopters have that job.

[kjs862]

Apple better get the glitches fix before they sell this many.

[Nicky G]

Wow... if this is true, now is the time to be buying AAPL, seeing as it's dipped a bit recently. These numbers dwarf all previous estimates, including some of the high ones Piper has put out. I think the phone is off the charts, and even Apple may be very surprised. App Store also seems wickedly popular, I know I have bought at least $50 worth of apps.

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by fluidedge

well thats all very nice but how many phones do Nokia/Motorola/Samsung make each week? 10m? Apple is still a very small fish in a very big pond

Yes, but they all make dozens of models. Some are expensive and some are the cheap ones the carriers give away for free.

No other single phone model comes close to these numbers.

So you say "yeah, but their companies are bigger." Yes, but Apple is attacking the desirable, high-end market using just ONE phone model. That's impressive no matter how you look at it.

[SimonTheSoundMa]

Do you get O2 UK contracts in Gibraltar?

[biketire]

i would like to put all the iPhones in a huge vat and run through them barefoot

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by fluidedge

well thats all very nice but how many phones do Nokia/Motorola/Samsung make each week? 10m? Apple is still a very small fish in a very big pond

How many phones do they make that compare in prices with the iPhone? In the mobile phone pond, the iPhone is one big, fat, mean carp in a pond full of gold fish .

[MidiMonk]

quality control is gone beware.

[onicon]

doesn't seem enough, though.
still almost no iphones in germany, with t-mobile telling people not to expect theirs until october.