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Is white iPhone delay to blame for iPhone 4 inventory shortages?

Is white iPhone delay to blame for iPhone 4 inventory shortages?

Another Apple product launch, another near-immediate strain on inventory. The suddenly missing in action white iPhone model may be to blame for the fact that Apple had to cease taking pre-orders for its iPhone 4, a mere hours after first offering it via its website and is now no longer offering the option to pre-order and pick it up on the official June 24th launch day. What initially appeared to be a mere website overload problem now has the makings of an outright supply shortage, as apple.com now states that those pre-ordering an iPhone today won’t be able to get their hands on it until July 14th. So what does this have to do with the white iPhone?

While Apple CEO Steve Jobs presented the white and black iPhone 4 models in his keynote as if they were both going to be available simultaneously, it’s since been revealed that the white iPhone is nowhere to be found: no pre-orders, no expectations that it’ll be available in stores on the 24th, and no official launch date. Assuming Apple initially bet equally on the black and white iPhone 4 models in terms of inventory production, that means that the company now has half the inventory to work with that it might have if the white iPhone had made it to market in time for launch. Some customers who really want that white model will wait for it, while others who didn’t have as strong a preference for it have likely already decided to go with the black model rather than wait. This means significantly higher than expected sales of the black iPhone for as long as the white iPhone is MIA. In other words, the lack of the white model is placing an unexpected strain on availability of the black model as well. Put another way: if Apple had decided from the start that there were only going to be a black iPhone 4, Apple would have manufactured twice as many of the black model instead of splitting its manufacturing orders between black and white.

This is the second major product launch in a row in which Apple has sold so many initial units that it quickly came up empty handed from an inventory perspective, and in fact the third consecutive if you count iPad and iPad 3G as separate launches. However in those cases it’s unlikely that Apple had a means of predicting the iPad’s potential popularity, meaning that it probably took the middle of the road in terms of initial inventory production (something that the company is undoubtedly now working to ramp up). In contrast, Apple knew for certain that iPhone 4 would be a big hit right out of the gate and likely manufactured a massive amount of initial inventory as a result; as such it’s presumable that the initial iPhone 4 shortages are instead merely a result of the white iPhone going unexpectedly missing and the black iPhone becoming more popular than expected as a result, and it may be equally as presumable that the current iPhone 4 inventory shortages will resolve themselves a soon as the white iPhone 4 model becomes available in quantity. Just don’t ask when that’s going to happen. In any case, here’s why the delay of the white iPhone makes it suddenly the more desirable choice.

[Thanks: http://www.beatweek.com]

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