Analysts are already estimating that the iPhone 5 mobile handset is expected to move more than 49 million units before December is out. Surprisingly enough, this is down from the estimated 57 million units that analysts were previously forecasting.
In an article by Business Week, RBC Capital Markets analysts believe that the reason the iPhone 5 won’t hit the coveted 57 million SKU mark is because of the bottleneck Apple has run into with keeping supplies up to speed with the massive global demand for the snazzy new handset.
One of the major slowdowns in meeting production quotas is because of reports of scratches and nicks in the iPhone 5 mobile devices. In result of consumer complaints, Apple has taking the hammer down on the manufacturing company Foxconn, who is in charge of producing the iPhone 5.
The extra requirement from workers to bring precision down to a near nanometer caused enough frustrations to nearly trigger a worker revolt and strike at the Foxconn plant, which was quickly quelled when the company threatened to fire all the workers and replace them.
The strike was couple with the lack of being able to produce anodized aluminum fast enough to meet demand, which some analysts believe will cost Apple up to $60 billion in market share value.
Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne, Agee & Leach Inc. commented about Apple’s predicament, saying…
“The iPhone 5 is not easy to put together because it’s a minimalist design,” … “Apple has a very high standard, where it aims to produce each model to be an exact replica where variance is measured in microns.”
Nevertheless, moving 49 million handsets instead of 57 million is nothing short of amazing and by no means could anyone but the biggest dogs on Wall Street see it as a failure of potential.