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The
Vision Pro, launched last month and expected to be available
early next year in the United States, has a starting price tag
of $3,499 - over three times the cost of the priciest headset in
Meta's line of mixed and virtual reality devices.
Chinese contract manufacturer Luxshare, Apple's only assembler
of the device, was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units of
Vision Pro in 2024, the newspaper said, citing two people close
to Apple and Luxshare.
Apple had an earlier internal sales target of 1 million units of
the headset in the first 12 months, as per the FT report. Apple
and Luxshare did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The iPhone maker has asked two China-based suppliers for enough
components for 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year, FT
said, adding that plans for a more affordable version of the
device have been pushed back.
A major difficulty in the production process is the
manufacturing of the micro-OLED displays for the device, FT
reported. Apple was unhappy with the yield of micro-OLEDs that
are free of defects, the report said.
Apple and Luxshare did not immediately respond to an email
asking for specifics of the challenges.
The cut to the 2024 production forecast has also "disappointed"
Luxshare, a person close to the company told FT, as it was set
to increase its capacity to be able to build almost 18 million
units annually in the coming years.
(Reporting by Gokul Pisharody in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita
Bhattacharjee)
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