By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Apple stock (NASDAQ:AAPL) traded 0.8% higher in Wednesday’s premarket even as worries mount over supplies of key components for its latest gadget, the iPhone13.
The company is staring at a disruption in supplies of camera modules that it sources from Vietnam, according to a Nikkei report. The modules go into all the four new models of the phone as opposed to being present in only the premium iPhone 12 Pro Max earlier. This means a big jump in its demand for the module, at a time when contractors are struggling to deliver.
Vietnam has been ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic in recent months, something already illustrated by Nike's profit warning last week. Earlier Wednesday, the country's statistics office said gross domestic product was down 6.2% on the year in August, due mainly to widespread factory closures.
The modules are crucial in that they equip the phone with sensor-shift optical image stabilization, a feature that helps in capturing stable images and videos even while the person is in motion.
The wait time for an iPhone 13 Pro Sierra Blue with 512 GB storage is up to five weeks in China and Japan and four weeks in the U.S.
Other parts too have been in short supply and the company has had to divert some chips meant for its new iPads for use in the iPhone 13 series, as per the Nikkei report. That has meant the company restricting consumers in China to a maximum of two iPad purchases for the new models.
The power crisis in China is also now threatening to raise the anxiety levels though so far assemblers Foxconn (OTC:HNHPF), Pegatron and Luxshare remain unaffected.