iPhone 2 Shortages Possible

by Eric March on June 8, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Break out the riot gear, because in spite or rumours of millions of iPhone shipments being sent to the US and abroad and currently sitting in warehouses across the nations, Barron’s is reporting* that Foxconn International Holdings, the company that Apple contracts to assemble the iPhones, isn’t meeting production demand. In fact, it is being said that so far, they have only manage to ship a few thousand. Foxconn isn’t expected to ramp up production until the middle of the month, although Apple has supposedly been pressuring them to turn the dial to 11 a few weeks ago.

The news apparently comes from a number of hedge fund managers who were sniffing around the engineers and supply-chain mangers at the contract component OEMs that handle the iPhone’s various pieces. Although the reason for the production lag is unclear, popular opinion seems to point the finger at Apple’s overly optimistic projection of the speed with which Infineon Technologies could get their latest iPhone chipset out the door.

Of course this is all still speculation, and a only a shade or two more credible than a friend-of-a-friend story, so let’s hope that either the story is a red herring or, at worst, the numbers are exaggerated, because if not, there are going to be a lot of angry people walking away empty-handed from a lot of Apple Stores on launch day after waiting in line for a week and a half.

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(via Silicon Alley Insider)