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Apple Reportedly Halted M2 Chip Production as Mac Shipments Tanked

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Reports from supply chain partners suggests that Apple cut off production of their current generation M2 SoC lineup in the months of January and February following significantly decreased demand for Mac computers containing the chips. The details trace back to partners in Outsourced Semiconductor Package Test, or OSAT, which is many different companies in the supply chain that contribute to assembly and testing of the final packaged SoC. OSAT partners claim they received zero M2 wafers from TSMC during both months, and that shipments have only resumed at half of the previous capacity in the month of March. The breadth of this shutdown touched many different suppliers, from the packaging facilities in Korea, to the solder ball suppliers in Taiwan, the TIM suppliers in Germany, and die underfill material suppliers from Japan. Many of these parts can be specific to the type of chip being produced, as M2 features a different packaging method to Apple's normal A-Series mobile SoCs; a lack of M2 silicon led to a full shutdown of this supply chain. An industry insider for Amcona states, "It is impossible to do other packaging work on the M2 line, the so-called 'Apple line' installed in Amcona chip packs."

In their Q1 2023 earnings conference Apple reported a sharp revenue drop in Mac sales from $10.85B down to $7.74B. "The PC market is facing a very challenging situation," stated Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, "I think we have an advantage with silicon but it will be very difficult in the short term." Apple began production of M2 well over a year ago when demand for Apple silicon equipped MacBooks was still sky high, and likely had large reserves of finished chips and machines stockpiled for the launch of M2 Pro and M2 Max in January. With demand dipping up to the launch of the new MacBook models it would certainly justify slowing down production, but outright halting it for multiple months suggests demand far undershot Apple's expectation.



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As someone who once had an AMD64 MBP, I’m not sure why I’d buy their current products unless I wanted some flavour of a really nice netbook for some reason.
 

Space Lynx

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Hopefully a price correction across entire industry is on the way.

Doubtful, more like they will just make less of them and focus on making something else that has massive profit margins. They will think of something and the sheep will gobble it up.
 
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Easy fix: do what all else is doing- stop production to lower stock => price will stay high.
:(
 

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Easy fix: do what all else is doing- stop production to lower stock => price will stay high.
:(
They can choose to reduce price and shrink margins, or maintain price and shrink volume. Seems like Apple is doing the latter which is in line with their strategy.
 
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They can choose to reduce price and shrink margins, or maintain price and shrink volume. Seems like Apple is doing the latter which is in line with their strategy.
:(
 

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late stage capitalism at it's finest
 
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A 16GB 512GB M2 here in Argentina costs 2600 USD.

Apple needs to seriously consider even taking a single look at their prices in other regions. Their "value" is a myth that only exists in the USA.
 
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ixi

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Doubtful, more like they will just make less of them and focus on making something else that has massive profit margins. They will think of something and the sheep will gobble it up.

Mouse with charging spot on top of it, so that you can use it White charging. Or even better. Gaming console on the epic dOS. Ipawn screen with actual oled.
 
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I am shocked that increasing price by several hundred dollars from one generation to the next have any impact on sales. :p:kookoo:
 
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Apple rode on the economic waves when it was thriving over the last decade, and now this wave is dying. Recession is upon us, and Tim's idea is to hastily release a 3 grand VR headset which will not help improve sales. I feel M2 is not selling as well as M1 for sure because it is just a slight improvement. People who really wanted a great Mac would have gotten an M1 Mac back then, and with the M2 offering little of an upgrade, it is just not as attractive. Moreover, you can now find new M1 Macs at quite a substantial discount over the M2 variants. So if you are out in the market looking for a MacBook, there is a good chance the M1 variant may win you over with a lower price tag.
 

bug

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Apple rode on the economic waves when it was thriving over the last decade, and now this wave is dying. Recession is upon us, and Tim's idea is to hastily release a 3 grand VR headset which will not help improve sales. I feel M2 is not selling as well as M1 for sure because it is just a slight improvement. People who really wanted a great Mac would have gotten an M1 Mac back then, and with the M2 offering little of an upgrade, it is just not as attractive. Moreover, you can now find new M1 Macs at quite a substantial discount over the M2 variants. So if you are out in the market looking for a MacBook, there is a good chance the M1 variant may win you over with a lower price tag.
That is easily fixed, Apple did it before: they find some fringe feature in the M2 chip and make it a requirement for publishing anything to App Store. Bam! All developers need to upgrade, problem solved.
 
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A page from 2020's big tech companies:

decrease supply to artificially maintain prices high
 
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jezz only 8 gb of ram what makes me not buying it. 16 gigs you need to sell both kidney...
 
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Thats unfortunate situation, techies will be laid off while execs keep cashing high value payouts.
Well tbf the middle/top level managers are almost always well off ~ there's reason even good engineers pursue MBA's.
 
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For what it's worth, Apple did cut the price of the Mini by $100 with the M2 launch, but yeah, the notebook line went up. I think the rumored 15" MBA will be a huge seller, but otherwise Apple customers that have M1 are holding out for a more substantial generational upgrade. The M1 is enough for many as it is.Yes, there are some hardcore Apple customers that buy whatever the newest thing is, but most push their existing products for several generations before upgrading.

Apple rode on the economic waves when it was thriving over the last decade, and now this wave is dying. Recession is upon us, and Tim's idea is to hastily release a 3 grand VR headset which will not help improve sales. I feel M2 is not selling as well as M1 for sure because it is just a slight improvement. People who really wanted a great Mac would have gotten an M1 Mac back then, and with the M2 offering little of an upgrade, it is just not as attractive. Moreover, you can now find new M1 Macs at quite a substantial discount over the M2 variants. So if you are out in the market looking for a MacBook, there is a good chance the M1 variant may win you over with a lower price tag.
Yeah, M1 was a critical chip for Apple's core customer base. It was a really good option many buyers, and it's still good enough. Also add in that post-Ive Apple came to its senses and started putting ports and proper keyboards back in again. M1 was the perfect storm, and M2 is simply not large enough of an upgrade to matter. I'm sure the same applies to most PC buyers. If you bought something recently, what is available today only matters if you are a customer that needs the best performance available.
 
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A 16GB 512GB M2 here in Argentina costs 2600 USD.

Apple needs to seriously consider even taking a single look at their prices in other regions. Their "value" is a myth that only exists in the USA.

Putting value and apple/mac in the same sentence is a sin against tech. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world.
 

hs4

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The M1 was a shocking performance, but the M2 is much closer to the M1 refresh. The lack of demand is unavoidable.
 
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