Apple’s Nightmare Before Christmas: iPhone production halted for the first time in over a decade

The iPhone assembly line has been shut down for the first time in over a decade, according to Nikkei. The assembly of the iPhone and iPad “has been stopped for several days due to supply chain and electricity restrictions in China,” according to several sources familiar with the situation.

Nikkei writes that Apple’s production typically goes on overtime this week to meet global demand during the holiday shopping season, but instead of giving workers extra shifts and switching to a 24-hour production schedule, they have free time.

One supply chain manager told Nikkei, “Due to the limited number of components and chips, it didn’t make sense to work overtime on holidays and pay extra workers. This has never happened before. This period has always been the busiest time when all assemblers ramped up production. “

Apple has already cut its iPhone 13 production forecasts in October. In November, Apple had to cut production of the iPad to keep production on the iPhone 13, and it wasn’t enough to prevent production from stopping. Apple’s original goal was to release 95 million iPhone 13 smartphones in 2021, but in early December the forecast was lowered to 83-85 million.

According to Nikkei, the production of iPhone 13 models in September and October was 20% less than the established plan. Meanwhile, iPad production reached only 50% of the expected volume over the same time period. Production of older iPhones dropped 25% and the situation has not improved since November.

According to Nikkei, the problems stem from a variety of reasons, including lockdown measures in Malaysia and Vietnam, unexpected capacity constraints in China, shortages, production bottlenecks, extended component lead times, and more.

In a previous post, we reported that all versions of the iPhone 13 in Russia dropped significantly in price until December 10.