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Foxconn Facing Display Shortages as it Struggles to Meet iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Demand

richardsonrs said:
Does it take an expert to figure out that simple math problem??
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The fact you assume the simple formula of total # of employees (effort) to produce total # of items (phones) as the metric for efficiency shows how inexperience and unqualified you are to for anything related to the manufacturing at this scale. There are so many internal and external factors with various vendors and supplies all working together but hey... you come in and BAMM 2.7/person sucks!. I am an expect to this simple problem.

Why don't you go work for Apple? With your internet wisdom I'm sure you can solve anything.. No more pre-orders or delays for any products in the world thanks to you.
 
Intentional supply shortages

Am I the only one who knows that most of this is by design on Apples end? Human beings tend to always want what they can't have...so by making supply shorter, it creates a mini panic and people who were on the fence suddenly HAVE to have it. It's simple psychology. The day apple meets demand on launch day is the day people start saying "Eh, maybe next year". Fantastic marketing.

Take a look at Playstation and Xbox launches..they do the same thing. All intentional to drive demand higher.
 
CL4W said:
It always amazes me that EVERY SINGLE YEAR this type of event happens, every single one. On one hand, if Apple were to produce too many iphones it would eat into their bottom line with storage, and expenditures on materials. On the other hand, which is whats happening now is that there isnt enough, which is worse than the first option. I dont understand why they cannot figure out by now that Holiday season is upon us, and just the general nature of releasing a new device WILL make the supply dry up quick.

I wonder how many 6+ devices they can really make in that 3-4 week waiting period? The demand outstripped the supply by a big margin, which again they should have expected because a lot people were jumping from Androids 5+" models.

Same old story...
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Which story? The story of the shortages, or Apple's use of supply and demand to create free advertising of the iPhone 6 to make others' demand higher? (It's the girlfriend effect, the best way to get a girl to notice you, no matter how ugly you are is to have a beautiful woman that looks like your girlfriend, at your side)
 
*Sigh* Those hard working people in those sweaty shops who can't afford a bag of rice every other hour but millions are impatient for their 8th device of the month. Seems a lot unfair we have it too easy hmm...

Love U All!
 
Will Samsung create an ad about the shortage?

Tim Cook may be right. There may be a pent up demand among Samsung/Android users for a larger iPhone!
 
vpro said:
*Sigh* Those hard working people in those sweaty shops who can't afford a bag of rice every other hour but millions are impatient for their 8th device of the month. Seems a lot unfair we have it too easy hmm...

Love U All!
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Apple takes better care of them than anyone else in the area would. These jobs are very sought after despite the long hours and tedious work.
 
If they're making 140,000 iPhone 6 Plus daily, it means more than 20 units per store (5,000 nationwide) should be available in stores.

My guess is pre order units were made before the announcement (maybe half a million or more) and US/Canada Apple stores will divvy up another 700,000 or so units.

Chances of getting one if one isn't too picky about color or size at a store: should be decent!

If Apple just devoted 1 day of production to US retail distribution and split the output equally among all carriers and size options then there should be at least 130 iPhone 6 Plus per Apple store in each size and carrier, 45 per color.
 
slow down

OatmealRocks said:
The fact you assume the simple formula of total # of employees (effort) to produce total # of items (phones) as the metric for efficiency shows how inexperience and unqualified you are to for anything related to the manufacturing at this scale. There are so many internal and external factors with various vendors and supplies all working together but hey... you come in and BAMM 2.7/person sucks!. I am an expect to this simple problem.

Why don't you go work for Apple? With your internet wisdom I'm sure you can solve anything.. No more pre-orders or delays for any products in the world thanks to you.
Click to expand...

You are an awesome googler, but let's slow down a bit on the assumptions. You're really only making yourself look MORE like a jackass than before..
 
JeffyTheQuik said:
Which story? The story of the shortages, or Apple's use of supply and demand to create free advertising of the iPhone 6 to make others' demand higher? (It's the girlfriend effect, the best way to get a girl to notice you, no matter how ugly you are is to have a beautiful woman that looks like your girlfriend, at your side)
Click to expand...

Love the analogy !!
 
xeroxrk said:
Am I the only one who knows that most of this is by design on Apples end? Human beings tend to always want what they can't have...so by making supply shorter, it creates a mini panic and people who were on the fence suddenly HAVE to have it. It's simple psychology. The day apple meets demand on launch day is the day people start saying "Eh, maybe next year". Fantastic marketing.

Take a look at Playstation and Xbox launches..they do the same thing. All intentional to drive demand higher.
Click to expand...

I don't think so! A key component of marketing is to be able to meet the demand. While it may make the iPhone more desirable (we always want what we cannot have), it turns off a lot of people as well who may get impatient.

I think they geared up for this but again, they are producing two new devices, not one. Plus, they produce different models for Verizon vs AT&T etc.
 
Vanilla Face said:
And in a few years Apple will bring production of the iPhones to the US because automation will make it cheaper to assemble here than to assemble in China and ship them.
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Labor makes up a small amount of the cost of the iphone. You have to move the entire supply chain here. And I doubt automation is going to come quite as fast as you think. If the same product was constructed in the same way for several years in a row, then automation is easier. But with it changing each year, you need new construction processes. People don't need to be programmed and that helps them be much more nimble than any machine we currently can make in volume.
 
OatmealRocks said:
The fact you assume the simple formula of total # of employees (effort) to produce total # of items (phones) as the metric for efficiency shows how inexperience and unqualified you are to for anything related to the manufacturing at this scale. There are so many internal and external factors with various vendors and supplies all working together but hey... you come in and BAMM 2.7/person sucks!. I am an expect to this simple problem.

Why don't you go work for Apple? With your internet wisdom I'm sure you can solve anything.. No more pre-orders or delays for any products in the world thanks to you.
Click to expand...

???

maybe his numbers are wrong but if you divide # of workers on line by total output the answer would be units per employee
 
I don't think the automation stuff will come anytime soon. Apple always glorifies at how all of their phones are hand crafted in their iPhone introduction videos.
 
Gregintosh said:
If they're making 140,000 iPhone 6 Plus daily, it means more than 20 units per store (5,000 nationwide) should be available in stores.

My guess is pre order units were made before the announcement (maybe half a million or more) and US/Canada Apple stores will divvy up another 700,000 or so units.

Chances of getting one if one isn't too picky about color or size at a store: should be decent!

If Apple just devoted 1 day of production to US retail distribution and split the output equally among all carriers and size options then there should be at least 130 iPhone 6 Plus per Apple store in each size and carrier, 45 per color.
Click to expand...

That seems like some very small numbers when the demand for the plus is probably going to be north of 20 million in the US alone.
 
Take your time, Foxconn. Don't half-ass the production process to simply meet demand. I'd gladly take a delay if it meant the product I'm getting is sound.
 
TallManNY said:
And I doubt automation is going to come quite as fast as you think. If the same product was constructed in the same way for several years in a row, then automation is easier. But with it changing each year, you need new construction processes. People don't need to be programmed and that helps them be much more nimble than any machine we currently can make in volume.
Click to expand...

It's already happening.
 
xeroxrk said:
Am I the only one who knows that most of this is by design on Apples end? Human beings tend to always want what they can't have...so by making supply shorter, it creates a mini panic and people who were on the fence suddenly HAVE to have it. It's simple psychology. The day apple meets demand on launch day is the day people start saying "Eh, maybe next year". Fantastic marketing.

Take a look at Playstation and Xbox launches..they do the same thing. All intentional to drive demand higher.
Click to expand...

No. What you think is wrong. This is not intentional by Apple and it is rarely intentional by any electronic manufacturer. The iPhone is new technology. Apple couldn't start making it and stockpiling it six months ago. Foxconn can only make so many phones and they are going flat out. Costs would skyrocket if Foxconn and Apple created an entire new manufacturing city that they only "turned on" for two months a year to meet launch day demand. But that is what you think they are failing to do and they are failing to do that only for marketing purposes in your mind.
 
1 Million workers in China.

Imagine if Apple assembled the iPhone in the U.S. and its shareholders were willing to accept lower profits. Instead of insisting on a cash-stash of $200 billion, what would have been so wrong with a cash-stash of, say, $110 billion? And if every major corporation did that for the U.S.?

If that had happen, the supply chain -- which has now shifted to China -- would have not disappeared from the U.S. Remember, the U.S. had that supply chain before but it was left to languish because of the chase for maximum profits, without heed for any responsibility of maintaining local manufacturing jobs.

Look, I realise there's a lot of ways to justify why having a national debt of $17.5 trillion is ok, because it allows U.S. corporations to maximise shareholder profits.

But consider this: historically there is such a phenomena as entire empires going down sink hole because the majority of people in that culture thought in the same rut, and could not see what was happening to their own culture, because their concepts appeared to be the norm because everyone around them thought the same way. For a nation to disintegrate, there has to be a critical mass where suddenly the majority of people buy into the destructive concept. Then collectively the civilisation drowns like a frog in the kettle.
 
Pman17 said:
More people want the big iPhone to point and laugh at the ones with the smaller iPhones. We all know that! :D
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The iPhone 5 slides perfectly in the console beneath the radio in my car. The iPhone 6 might, the iPhone 6 plus definitely won't. Small is better sometimes.
 
heisenberg123 said:
???

maybe his numbers are wrong but if you divide # of workers on line by total output the answer would be units per employee
Click to expand...

Honestly though, even if 40%, which I HIGHLY doubt, of the 200k are devoted to other than floor work that still doesn't make the avg floor worker all that quick for putting phones together. I would consider 10 per day per worker quite low. But that's just me. Obviously the different parts have different assembly lines and one waits for the other blah blah blah. It still seems low IMO
 
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