• Reports suggest Apple’s suppliers in China has provided newly revised estimates for how many Vision Pro headsets can be produced in 2024.
• The company is said to have planned to manufacture as many as one million headsets.
• The new figure for the Vision Pro is less than 400 000.

After years of rumours, Apple officially unveiled its Vision Pro augmented reality headset in early June, splitting opinion among many in the industry.

While the pricey piece of tech has been lauded for its innovation, the $3 500 price tag will likely put it out of the reach of most consumers who are interested in augmented reality.

Those wanting to buy one may have also been dealt another blow, as a report from The Financial Times (paywall) suggests that far fewer Vision Pro headsets will be manufactured in 2024.

To that end, Apple is said to have wanted as many as one million units produced, but suppliers in China have tempered those expectations and provided an updated guideline of less than 400 000.

“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,” the publication wrote.

The Financial Times added that the degree of complexity in the manufacture of the headset presents a potential problem too, with the micro-OLED display for example being unlike anything else that it currently on the market.

The fact that Sony and TSMC, which provided the respective displays and chipsets for the headset prototypes shown off last month, has not commented on production either, is also rather concerning.

“A lot of this is normal growing pains. This is the most complex consumer device anyone has ever made,” Jay Goldberg, founder of tech consultancy D/D Advisors, told the publication regarding the device.

“I think Apple went into this with a lot of ‘bad yield’ built into the model. There is a lot of technology in the Vision Pro and they knew it would take a while to scale up. Apple knows they won’t make money on this in the first year,” he continued.

Whether the Cupertino-based company has indeed bitten off more than it can chew with this latest device remains to be seen, but given how much innovative and expensive technology is found in the Vision Pro, we would be surprised to see the previously outlined $3 500 price rise.

We’re also curious to see when pre-orders for the Vision Pro will go live in the United States, not to mention when those who have purchased the headset can receive it.

Either way, Apple has a lot to follow through on.