Apple has been forced to make major cuts to production forecasts for its Vision Pro augmented-reality headset due to design complexities, the Financial Times news report said.
The Vision Pro, launched last month at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple is planning to bring the Vision Pro AR headset for commercial purposes early next year with a starting price of $3,499 in the United States.
The price of Vision Pro AR headset is three times the cost of the priciest headset in Meta’ line of mixed and virtual reality devices. This will put a block on the demand for the AR headset from Apple, analysts said earlier.
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 Cupertino, California-based Apple had an earlier internal sales target of 1 million units of the headset in the first 12 months.
The iPhone maker has asked two China-based suppliers for enough components for 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year. Apple has also pushed back its plans for a more affordable version of the device.
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 cut to the 2024 production forecast has also disappointed Luxshare as it was set to increase its capacity to be able to build almost 18 million units annually in the coming years.
