Apple CFO Luca Maestri in an earnings call said, “Last year we started selling new iPhones in late September. This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later.”
Apple typically launches new iPhone models in September and host their availability a few days later
iPhone 12 will launch late, Apple confirmed today. CFO Luca Maestri confirmed the delay during an earnings call with investors that provided details around the company's June quarter results. The latest development comes as a follow-up after Qualcomm suggested a slight delay in the launch of the next-generation iPhone lineup that could include the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and the iPhone 12 Pro Max as the new models. The 2020 iPhone family is speculated to include 5G support and various new hardware-level changes over the iPhone 11 series.
Without providing any specific details around the delay, Maestri said, “Last year we started selling new iPhones in late September. This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later.” He also confirmed that he was referring to the new iPhone series while answering a question asked by an analyst during the call.
Apple has a record of unveiling its new iPhone models in September and making them available for purchase a few days later in the month. That typical schedule was followed in case of the iPhone 11 series as well. However, there are some exceptions in the model as we've seen some delay in the availability of the iPhone X and iPhone XR in the past.
While Maestri's comments certainly highlight the delay in the launch of the next-generation iPhone models, Apple could host an event to unveil its lineup sometime in September and announce its availability for October. This would be similar to the case of the iPhone X and iPhone XR that both were unveiled in September but went on sale at a later stage due to reported production issues.
Earlier this week, Qualcomm suggested the delay in the launch of the new iPhone models in its earnings report. Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhiwala also indicated the development by saying, “a slight delay that pushes some of the units out from the September quarter to the December quarter for us.”
Tipster Jon Prosser claimed that Apple would unveil the iPhone 12 series alongside its new iPad models in October. This seems to be something that has now been suggested by Maestri in the earnings call.
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