Over the past few weeks, we have continued to receive indications of the relatively strong demand for Apple's iPhone 17 lineup. However, now supply chain checks have just provided the most solid inkling to date regarding the demand environment for Apple's latest flagship smartphones, painting a fairly upbeat picture in the process.
Taiwan's Commercial Times (CTEE) has just reported:
- Apple's assembly line sources believe 62 million units of the iPhone 17 lineup will be assembled in the fourth quarter of 2025.
- This exceeds the comparable volume for the fourth quarter of 2024 by around 3 million units, indicating incremental demand of around 5 percent.
- Apple's A19 chips - built on TSMC's third-generation 3nm node (N3P) process - will keep TSMC's advanced-node capacity running at full utilization levels.
- Incremental demand for the A19 chips will emerge from the upcoming iPad Pro and MacBook Pro models.
- The A20 chip will use TSMC's 2nm node process in 2026, with preparations underway for initial trial production at Kaohsiung Fab 22.
- Apple's M6 chip will also be built on the 2nm node process, "and related production capacity estimates are even tighter."
Our readers should keep in mind the following caveats and inferences:
- Apple's iPhones are assembled in India. The Taiwan Daily is likely leveraging TSMC's wafer capacity utilization estimates, gleaned from its supply chain sources, to provide a ballpark figure regarding the number of iPhones that will likely be assembled in Q4.
- The third quarter of 2025 saw 28 million iPhone 17 lineup units get assembled vs. the 26 million units that were assembled in Q3 2024, corresponding to an increase of 7.7 percent.
- Combined Q3 and Q4 assembly volumes are currently running around 5 million units ahead of comparable volumes for the iPhone 16 lineup in Q3 and Q4 of 2024.
- The iPhone 17 Air has still not gone on sale in China due to eSIM-related regulatory issues.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
