Apple on Tuesday issued a press release to remind everyone that the iPhone X will be available for preorder on October 27th, with deliveries and in-stores sales set to start a week later. As if any iPhone buyer waiting for the “X” didn’t already know those dates.
Tim Cook, meanwhile, addressed questions regarding the expected limited iPhone X availability, promising that Apple will do whatever it can to improve production as soon as possible.
Apple said in the press release that stores will have iPhone X stock for walk-in customers. But they’re “encouraged to arrive early.” In other words, expect low iPhone X stock and rather lengthy lines. BuzzFeed, meanwhile, asked Cook about the iPhone X production issues.
“We’ll see what happens,” Cook said, without really elaborating on whether the production issues are real or not. “But we’ll be working as hard as possible to make as many as possible.”
Don’t expect anyone from Apple to actually tell us how many iPhone X units will be available on launch day, or report actual iPhone X sales for the launch weekend.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, known for his accurate Apple predictions, said a few days ago that Apple may have just 2-3 million iPhone X units on hand for the launch. Since then, a fresh report out of Japan claims that Apple will only be able to make some 20 million iPhone X units this year, which amounts to half of its initial target for the year. An estimated 40 million people will look to preorder the iPhone X, so things should get very ugly this year.
