Want an Apple Vision Pro? It might be harder than you think

A new report has detailed that Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro headset has had production issues hit the hardware, leaving the company with significantly less stock.

Apple might have a production issue with the Vision Pro, its new mixed-reality headset. The hardware has already had a divisive reaction and is reportedly facing a significant cut in how many units will be available at launch.

The Financial Times reports that Luxshare, the Chinese company that will put the Vision Pro together, is only expected to make less than 400,000 units for Apple in 2024.

FT also details that Luxshare is “disappointed” in the major cut, with the factories expecting to gear up to produce nearly 18 million units as the product enters maturity.

Apple has also allegedly only requested less than 150,000 particular components from other Chinese manufacturers during its first year.

The Cupertino company has a record of being overly demanding with suppliers, with Apple now upset with their suppliers. A previous report detailed how Sony can’t manage to hit a million units of the OLED panels being used inside the device, adding to the ongoing production issues.

The Apple Vision Pro has no concrete release date other than “Early 2024”. We don’t expect a more exact release date any time soon, either.

Production headaches for Apple Vision Pro

Apple

The Financial Times did speak with Jay Goldberg, founder of the consultant agency D/D Advisors. He also suspects that the high price, currently set at $3500, is to alleviate any losses from a lack of units in the first-generation hardware.

In an interview, Golberg said:

“This is the most complex consumer device anyone has ever made.

“I think Apple went into this with a lot of ‘bad yield’ built into the model.

“There is a lot of technology in the Vision Pro and they knew it would take a while to scale up.

“Apple knows they won’t make money on this in the first year.”

However, Apple is also apparently working on the next generation of hardware already. The next version of the Vision Pro should appeal to a more mass market, with a much lower entry cost. Supposedly, LG and Samsung have been enlisted to help produce the micro-OLED panels.