Due to manufacturing issues, Apple has significantly lowered its production forecast for the Vision Pro augmented reality headset, which is expected to launch early next year at a retail price of $3,500.
The report said the ‘complexity’ of the Vision Pro headset and ‘production difficulties’ prompted Apple to lower its 2024 production target to less than 400,000 units. financial timesciting unnamed sources close to Apple and Luxshare, the Chinese manufacturer responsible for assembling the headphones.
Two other Chinese suppliers have been cited before financial times The claim that Apple has ordered enough components to produce just between 130,000 and 150,000 units of the Vision Pro headphones in 2024.
A major problem in producing the device may come from the complexity of its design, and in particular from Apple’s decision to use two high-resolution OLED displays, which are very expensive and marred by low yields. These disruptions also prompted the company to delay plans for a cheaper version of its augmented reality headset.
After the announcement last month, analysts gave varying projections of how many Vision Pro headphones Apple expects to sell in 2024. Analysts at investment firm Wedbush estimate that Apple will ship about 150,000 helmet units in 2024, and then a million the following year. Bank of America analysts were more optimistic, expecting Apple to sell 1.5 million units of the Vision Pro in its first full year on the market. Apple’s internal estimates initially projected 1 million units for the first year. For comparison, the first iPhone sold 1.7 million copies in 2007, having been launched at the end of June of the same year.
Last month, during a period Worldwide Developers ConferenceApple unveiled the Vision Pro, its biggest product in nearly a decade. The device, which looks like a pair of ski goggles with a screen on the front, has been described as Apple’s biggest product launch since the first iPhone. During its announcement, Apple appeared to be making a deliberate effort to distance itself from competitors like the Meta, Google, and Microsoft by describing the product as a “space computing” device rather than a virtual reality or augmented reality headset. At $3,500, the Vision Pro is significantly more expensive than competing products, including the $999 Meta Quest Pro (launched at $1,500) and the $599 Sony PlayStation VR 2.
Translated article from the American magazine Forbes – Author: Siladitya Ray
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