According to the latest report from Nikkei Asia, Apple suppliers in China are lagging behind in the development of one of the iPhone 14 series models due to the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown across the country.
Based on information from unnamed sources close to the situation, the source writes that Apple has urged suppliers to speed up component development to keep up with production schedules.
Foxconn, Pegatron and Luxshare Precision Industry are three key suppliers of future iPhone models, with the latter two suffering from the slow reopening of factories in Shanghai amid the pandemic. It is estimated that the lockdown in China and the disruption to production of future iPhone models could end up costing Apple up to $8 billion in revenue.
Looking back at past iPhone development schedules, all new Apple smartphones are in the engineering verification test (EVT) phase by June, but a new report confirms that at least one of the iPhone 14 series models is three weeks behind schedule.
Apple plans to release the iPhone 14 by September of this year, but it is not yet known for sure whether it will be able to do this.