Apple on Monday announced record results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus having played a crucial role despite being available in stores for only 10 days during the period. The company sold more than 10 million units during launch weekend, and that doesn’t even include China. The phones were released in the largest market in the world about a month later, where they were met with huge demand, with many buyers purchasing the phablet version, according to unofficial estimates.
Following its previous reports that largely said the same thing, Digitimes is again saying that Apple is going to increase iPhone 6 Plus manufacturing volumes in order to “satisfy strong demand from China.”
FROM EARLIER: Apple crushes estimates with record Q4 profit on $42.12B in revenue
Sources familiar with the matter said that Apple is shifting production capacity to the iPhone 6 Plus, with iPhone 6 to iPhone 6 Plus supply ratio “likely” to change to 55:45, from 70:30 or 65:35 set originally.
iPhone 6 Plus is still significantly constrained, with current estimates in Apple’s U.S. online store still showing a wait time of up to four weeks, no matter what iPhone 6 Plus version (color, storage, carrier) is chosen.
“At this point we’re selling everything that we make,” Tim Cook said in Apple’s Q4 conference call, during the Q&A session, without offering any specific details about the iPhone 6/6 Plus mix. “And so it’s difficult to say that we’ve estimated well on the SKU mix, or the split between the iPhone 6 vs. 6 Plus. From everything we can tell, we’ve done a pretty good job on that. But I’ve stopped short of saying there’s no issue at all. Because it’s hard to tell when you’re at a point where you’re selling everything you’re making. It’s a good problem to have.”
