If you’re planning to buy an Apple product for a loved one this Christmas, you may want to start shopping earlier than usual, as a perfect storm of logistical issues is likely to cause serious delays throughout the period holidays.
In a detailed exploration of the factors, AppleInsider reports that Apple will face “giant challenges” organizing its supply chain in the coming months. This could mean another delayed Christmas, after the problems of 2021 and, to a lesser extent, 2022.
As in 2021, multiple factors are combining to give Apple headaches – several of them, it should be noted, causing far more serious damage to the parties involved than simply slowing smartphone distribution. Hurricane Helene, for example, caused the closure of a quartz mine essential to Apple’s supply of semiconductors. A factory in India was destroyed by fire, necessitating a change in manufacturing.
Dockworkers in the United States have gone on strike, and it will have a greater effect than in previous years due to Apple’s desire to become carbon neutral and use shipping instead of air when doing so. is possible. And global economic conditions are uncertain, which could reduce appetite for new iPhones (and ironically help Apple keep up with demand), but could also cripple the company’s financing.
Any one of those factors would make life difficult during the notoriously demanding holiday shopping season, around which Apple’s product release schedule is built. But all of these together almost certainly mean stock-outs and shipping delays. So it’s probably wise to buy as soon as possible if you want an iPhone in time for Christmas.
