Apple forced to scale back Vision Pro headset production plans

afr.com:

Hong Kong/San Francisco/Tokyo | Apple has been forced to make drastic cuts to production forecasts for the mixed-reality Vision Pro headset, unveiled last month after seven years in development and hailed as its most significant product launch since the iPhone.

The complexity of the headset design and difficulties in production are behind the scaling back of targets, while plans for a more affordable version of the device have had to be pushed back, according to multiple people with knowledge of the manufacturing process.

Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headsets on show at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, last month. Bloomberg

Apple has already flagged that the $US3500 ($5250) “spatial computing” headset device will not go on sale until “early next year”, a lengthy gap from its June 5 launch. Analysts have interpreted this as being more to do with supply chain problems than allowing developers time to create apps for the Vision Pro.

Two people close to Apple and Luxshare, the Chinese contract manufacturer that will initially assemble the device, said it was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units next year. Multiple industry sources said Luxshare was Apple’s only assembler of the device.

Separately, two China-based sole suppliers of certain components for the Vision Pro said Apple was asking them for enough for only 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year.

Both projections imply a significant cut to production from an earlier, internal sales target of 1 million units in the first 12 months. The forecasts for low volumes reflect Apple’s lack of confidence in being able to scale production, according to analysts and industry experts, following years of missed