Boring News: Vision Pro Sales Are Going Just About as Expected

Ming-Chi Kuo, two weeks ago:

Apple has cut its 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400–450k units (vs. market consensus of 700–800k units or more). Apple cut orders before launching Vision Pro in non-US markets, which means that demand in the US market has fallen sharply beyond expectations, making Apple take a conservative view of demand in non-US markets.

Neil Cybart, on Twitter/X:

Ming-Chi Kuo’s numbers and statements regarding Apple Vision Pro sales don’t make sense. [...]

Interestingly, when framing a 400K to 450K unit sales figure for Vision Pro in 2024 (which would actually be a good result), Kuo compares the range to a made up consensus figure of 700K to 800K unit sales. I don’t recall anyone running with such a high sales range for Vision Pro in 2024. Instead, Kuo himself actually claimed back on Feb 28th that a few suppliers were planning for 700K to 800K production. That’s not the same as a sales forecast. Far from it. Kuo would know that too, so one is left to assume he’s purposely being misleading.

Ming-Chi Kuo occasionally uncovers legitimate scoops from Apple’s Asian supply chain. Ming-Chi Kuo also regularly inserts his own name into the news when he has no legitimate scoops. This is one of the latter. There was no “market consensus” that Apple would sell 700–800K Vision Pro units in 2024. In fact, the reporting has been around the 400–450K range since last summer.

The Financial Times, back on 3 July 2023:

Two people close to Apple and Luxshare, the Chinese contract manufacturer that will initially assemble the device, said it was preparing to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024. Multiple industry sources said Luxshare was currently Apple’s only assembler of the device. Separately, two China-based sole suppliers of certain components for the Vision Pro said Apple was only asking them for enough for 130,000 to 150,000 units in the first year.

TheElec reported last June that Sony only had the capacity to manufacture 900,000 OLED panels per year for Vision Pro, which, if true, would cap Vision Pro headset production at 450,000 units. The Information reported in August that this display bottleneck “is one reason why Apple plans to make fewer than half a million Vision Pros in the first year of production”.

★ Monday, 6 May 2024