Apple may only manage to ship 20 million iPhone X units this year

The iPhone X goes up for pre-order in just a few days time and amid numerous reports of production issues, many are going to have a hard time getting their phone early. We have already heard that Apple will only have around three million units to sell on launch day but now, an additional report has shed some light on how many iPhone X’s we can expect to be on shelves by the end of the year.

Initially, Apple had planned to ship as many as 40 million iPhone X units before the end of 2017. Unfortunately, it looks like the company may have to settle for a lot less. According to a report from Nikkei, Apple will apparently only be able to ship 20 million iPhone X units this year, as various issues have hampered mass production.

According to the report, early in the mass production cycle, an error with the OLED panel bonding process was discovered. This was fixed early on but from there, more issues arose, particularly with the front facing camera module, which now needed to house more components for Face ID.

Apple is apparently already in negotiations with suppliers to try and boost the numbers a bit and get additional orders for some components. However, if seems that Apple fans may struggle to get an iPhone X within the first month of its release. Right now, three million iPhone X units are expected to be available at launch, which sounds like a huge number. However, when you take into account that Apple usually sells more than ten million iPhones in an opening weekend, that number suddenly looks very small.

KitGuru Says: We have yet to see how things will play out for the iPhone X but I wouldn’t be surprised to see expected shipping dates on Apple’s website start to slip very quickly. Are any of you thinking about getting an iPhone X?

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