According to various industry sources, HTC may have a shortage of HTC One devices at launch due to supply issues with the handset’s voice coil motor and UltraPixel camera module. Supply channel checks by KGI Securities have forced the company to lower its March shipping estimate of the HTC One from 4 million units to between 800,000 and 1.2 million units with mid-year shipments dropping to 10.5 million units from the previous forecast of 4 million to 15 million units. The cause of the Ultrapixel camera module shortage is blamed on yield rates below 20%.
Component supply issues are pretty common in the smartphone industry. Before the launch of the HTC One X and One S in 2012, rumors were floating around that Qualcomm was having issues producing enough processors for the two devices. It seems a bit ironic that HTC may not have enough components to build enough units of the HTC One considering that the first time we heard about the device rumors indicated that HTC was already sourcing components to manufacture 4 to 5 million units of the HTC M7 in Q1 of 2013
Without an official statement form HTC, it’s impossible to know if the information revealed by these industry sources is accurate. Unfortunately, there is real-world evidence which suggests that HTC does have an HTC One supply shortage on its hands. CNET Asia has reported that the HTC One launch in Singapore, originally scheduled for this week, has been pushed back to April due to “shipping issues.”
If there are component issues holding up the production of the HTC One, we hope HTC is able to work with its suppliers to resolve the issues as soon as possible. HTC was hoping to have the HTC One on the market at least a month or two before the Samsung Galaxy S IV in an effort to regain some of the market share that the company lost in 2012.
Source: CNET
i order NOW !!! 😉
It’s the usual tech scam. Shortages create demand as it must be fantastic to sell out.
Then magically they find more down the back of the sofa…..
Old news
They should just take a page from what Google/LG did with nexus 4. Say its not in stock because its selling so well without revealing how many you actually sell. HTC has to spin these stories better like all the other manufacturers already do.
On other less friendly HTC websites people are already claiming that this shortage means the end of HTC which is ridiculous.
With a month or so between the launch of HTC One and the new Galaxy, they need to create higher demand in the first month and take all the advantage given by a head start. After that I guess people will be more willing to choose Samsung over HTC. I doubt HTC would fail to ensure that they don’t run off on supplies, especially since it’s their only flagship for this year and they’re hoping to regain market share with the One. They put a lot of effort in making a worldwide launch across multiple carriers possible, so a shipment cut is something that’s just not gonna happen…
Exactly. It’d be suicidal to not keep up with demand with the Galaxy S4 so close.
I wonder how many additional sales/pre-orders this rumour creates? Or will it actually do the reverse and send people to the S4 which will be more readily available?
yea, I hope that doesn’t happen, for HTC’s sake