There are strong indications that the highly-anticipated iPhone 12, which will be Apple’s first 5G device, will be delayed by months following disruptions to its supply chain because of the coronavirus crisis.
According to Bloomberg, one of Apple’s biggest suppliers – Broadcom Inc – strongly suggested the highly-anticipated release of the next iPhone will be released later than usual.
Hock Tan, CEO of Broadcom Inc, revealed recently in an earnings call that there was a “major product cycle delay” at a “large North America mobile phone customer”. Tan has referred to Apple in this way before.
Broadcom Inc is a chip manufacturer.
“We are in,” Tan said referring to his company’s chips in the new iPhone. “The question is timing.”
Typically, Apple has a September event to unveil its new iPhone before it goes on sale a couple of weeks later.
This year it looks like it will be a different story.
Apple could very well stick to its September launch schedule but it could delay the release of the new iPhone until November.
And it’s all because of COVID-19 which severely disrupted production and also prevented Apple executives travelling to China to finalise the product.
There were reports earlier this year about the possibility of delays for the iPhone 12 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Apple were particularly hard hit with factories either shut down or operating at a greatly reduced capacity.
At that time there were even internal discussions within the company about delaying the release of the new iPhone by several months and possibly even until 2021.
Apple is already more than a year behind other major smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei and Oppo who have already released 5G devices.
