UBS analyst: Apple iPhone 14 Pro / Max shipment delay “extremely long”, iPhone 14 / Plus demand remains sluggish
The wait time for the iPhone 14 Pro series models has reached extremely long levels two months after release, and the iPhone 14 standard edition models are not making up for the huge demand.
In a note to investors from UBS Investment Bank, analyst David Vogt said that the wait time for the iPhone 14 Pro models has increased again. UBS tracks iPhone availability in 30 countries, and wait times have reached about 34 days in most markets, including the United States.
In China, the shipping time is now 36 days, up 10 days from the beginning of November.
With consumers having to wait so long to receive the iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max, UBS had expected people to buy the lower-end iPhone 14 Standard Edition model instead. However, that wasn’t the case, and David Vogt called the wait times for iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus an indication that their demand was “irrelevant.
Consumers can walk right into an Apple Retail Store or carrier store, or order online, and get their iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Plus with little to no wait time.
While the huge popularity of the iPhone 14 Pro line is a good thing for Apple, UBS sees some risk for the company if it can’t meet demand during the critical holiday season. If wait times do not improve in the coming weeks, iPhone shipments will fall well short of expectations.
As a result, Apple iPhone revenue is likely to be flat year-over-year, compared with expectations for growth of about 2 percent, and iPhone revenue growth of nearly 10 percent reported in the September quarter.
UBS predicts iPhone shipments will reach 83 million units in the December quarter, slightly below its earlier forecast of 86 million units in November.
