Due to poor sales, apple may suspend the assembly of Vision Pro as early as November, and suspend the R&D work on high-end version upgrades for at least a year. Currently, suppliers have produced enough components for 0.5 to 0.6 million headsets, and apple may have accumulated enough inventory to sell through next year. An employee said that in recent weeks, apple has informed luxshare precision industry, the assembler of Vision Pro, to reduce production from around 2,000 units per day to about 1,000 units.
Apple's Vision Pro headset is getting colder, with many supply chain sources saying Apple has decided to reduce production.
On October 23, Eastern Time, The Information cited multiple sources directly involved in the production of components for the device, stating that since early summer of this year, Apple has significantly reduced production of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset and may completely cease production of the current version of the device by the end of the year.
According to The Information's previous report, earlier this year Apple decided to manufacture a cheaper headset than the existing version (priced at $3500), which may be released by the end of 2025.
Simply put, this move may indicate that Apple finds the current version of the mixed reality headset too expensive and difficult to sell, so they plan to make a cheaper version. The current expensive version may not be produced by the end of the year. Apple's decision to halt production may also mean that they already have enough inventory to sell, so they are not in a hurry to produce new ones.
At the same time, according to another source directly involved in Apple's supply chain, they have also suspended the upgrade research and development work on the second-generation high-end version for at least a year, waiting to decide later.
Report: Multiple vendors reduce production of Vision Pro components.
Apple's first Vision Pro headset did not sell well because it was too expensive and had too little usable software. Employees from three electronic and mechanical parts suppliers for Vision Pro said they had enough parts to make 0.5 to 0.6 million headsets, but Apple's sales forecast was very pessimistic, so they stopped production of parts in May, with tens of thousands of undelivered parts still in the warehouse.
For apple, Vision Pro is its biggest bet in new product categories over the years. However, Apple has fallen behind its competitor Meta in this field, as Meta has been selling headsets for several years, at a cheaper price, with the latest model selling for only $300.
Research institution Counterpoint stated that Apple sold about 0.37 million headsets in the first three quarters of this year, and is expected to sell only about 0.05 million by the end of the year. In comparison, Meta sold about 6 million Quest 2 and 3 million Quest 3 headsets in the first three quarters after launch, despite these devices being priced lower.
An employee at Luxshare Precision Industry mentioned that in recent weeks, Apple has informed Luxshare Precision, responsible for the final assembly of Vision Pro, that production may need to stop in November. Luxshare Precision produces about 1000 Vision Pro headsets per day, less than 2000 at peak times. Since production began last year, leading to the release in the USA in February this year, a total of about 0.5 million to 0.6 million headsets have been assembled.
According to sources in Apple's supply chain, Apple started ramping up production of Vision Pro headsets and related components last autumn, so Apple may now have enough inventory to sell this device until next year. They also indicated that if sales start to rise, Vision Pro production can quickly resume as Apple has not dismantled the production line.
According to a person involved in the Vision Pro supply chain, Apple has informed a supplier that during the entire production period of the upcoming cheaper version (internally code-named N109), they will need to produce enough components for 4 million headsets. In contrast, Apple had previously estimated the need to produce 8 million, but this estimate was made before the product was launched.
Although Apple's high-end Vision product development is currently on hold, analysts and sources involved in the Vision Pro supply chain suggest that Apple may still make some small updates to Vision Pro, such as tweaking its appearance design. In this case, Apple may upgrade the main processor, while keeping the other parts of the device mostly unchanged to utilize excess components.
In an interview published on Sunday, Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal that Vision Pro is too expensive and not a product for the masses, but some tech enthusiasts who like to try new technologies are still willing to buy it. Cook said: "This product is prepared for those who want to use tomorrow's technology today, and there are quite a few of these people, which makes me quite excited."
"Today's weather is good." "Today's weather is good."