Apple Orders Staggering 80M iPhone 6 Units

The iPhone 6 is coming – that’s something we’ve known for quite a while now. A new report from the Wall Street Journal, however, offers up more concrete details about the production of the iPhone, and the fact that Apple’s looking to get as many units manufactured as possible by the end of the year.

According to the report, Apple has ordered its Asian component suppliers to make “between 70 million and 80 million units combined” of each model of iPhone 6 that we’ve heard about by December 30. The post points out how that figure is pretty huge when compared with the orders for last year’s iPhone 5s and 5C, which combined for a total of 50 million and 60 million units.

That isn’t all. Apparently, previously reported difficulties in manufacturing the iPhone 6’s large sapphire displays are still a concern. There’s also a lot of work being done to perfect the process of making displays with “in-cell technology, which allows the screens to be thinner and lighter by integrating touch sensors into the liquid crystal display and making it unnecessary to have a separate touch-screen layer.” The result is Apple telling its suppliers to get ready to make up to 120 million iPhone 6 units before the year to ensure that the company can replace units that don’t come off the assembly line in full working condition.

What’s interesting is that the 120 million figure is there to act as a stopgap against manufacturing issues. That means that the 80 million figure is more or less what Apple hopes to sell between the two iPhone 6 models when they’re released later this year (and, probably, early next year for the larger model). That’s a whole lot of iPhones, but part of the reason for such a high order number could be the fact that it’s been a while since Apple actually went up a whole model number. As you may recall, the iPhone 5 came on the market in 2012, while the 5s and 5C showed up in 2013. That means Apple fans have been lugging around devices with a “5” in the title for two years – that’s unconscionable! Apple knows that its customers are hungry for the iPhone 6, and will likely buy the crap out of it when it comes out this year – hence the high initial order.

The big question I still have is whether or not Apple will manage to release the larger model alongside the smaller one at the end of the year, or if we’ll have to wait until 2015 for the 5.5-inch model. And how do these numbers relate to manufacturing of the iWatch?

[Source: WSJ]