Apple iPhone 14 Production Delayed Due To COVID-19 Restrictions In China, Will This Postpone Launch?

Apple’s iPhone 14 series is expected to be launched in September this year. This, however, might just be delayed as a report has now said that the production has fallen behind schedule due to fresh COVID-19 shutdowns in China.

According to a report in Nikkei Asia, Apple and its suppliers are now struggling to make up for lost time. It says that the development of at least one iPhone model has fallen behind schedule due to disruptions from the month-long COVID-19 lockdowns in China. Apple has told suppliers to speed up the product development to make up for the losts time. The report also cites sources as saying that the worst case scenario here is that this could impact the manufacturing schedule and initial production volumes of the new phones.

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“It is challenging to make up for the lost time. … Apple and its suppliers are working around the clock to speed up development,” an executive was quoted by Nikkei as saying.

To be more specific, the delay in iPhone production is said to be with the engineering verification test (EVT). This is the part of the process where supplier finalises all the parts and the processes needed to begin production.

Apple generally launches the iPhone in late September every year. For the company to meet this timeline, the EVT stage should be completed by the end of June. However, one of the models is said to have fallen three weeks behind, according to the report. Now, while this doesn’t mean much at this moment, but if things don’t get better, we may see one iPhone 14 model hitting the markets slightly late.

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According to analysts cited in the report, it is unlikely that Apple will be able to make up for lost time as there could be more restrictions in place in China. A similar situation had taken place back in 2017, when Apple launched the iPhone 8 series and iPhone X at the same time, but the iPhone X was made available in November 2017.

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