Labor Shortage Blamed that My Apple Watch Only Arrived Today

The Apple Watch delays and shortages are supposed to be caused by faulty parts, but a new report suggests otherwise.

Today my Apple Watch Sport Space Grey 42mm arrived. I pre-ordered it less then 5 minutes after the pre-order launch and ended up waiting until /4/15 for it. The official shipment start for the Apple Watch was April 24. Considering that the current shipment dates are July, I still can consider myself lucky.

So why did Apple had such a limited supply of Apple Watches. Initially a faulty Taptic engine was blamed by rumors. Today a new report says it was mainly Labor shortages during the Lunar New Year holidays that caused the delay. 

According to Digitimes, Quanta Vice Chairman CC Leung said that its client’s wearable device is no longer a challenge to Quanta in both technology and quality. Because of labor shortages during the Lunar New Year holidays, Quanta was forced to borrow manpower from other manufacturers and was only able to deliver limited shipments in the first quarter. However, Quanta already has sufficient capacity to manufacture all the orders and should see a giant contribution from its wearable device business in the second quarter.

He never mentioned Apple by name. Leung added that the wearable device is unlike the smartwatches it produced before and has a lot of functions in it and its client is satisfied with the product.

It looks like many factors played into the dramatic shortage of the Apple Watch. It was definitely one of the worst product launches in Apple’s history. I have not even opened yet the Apple Watch box as my excitement has been damped by the long wait time. I will post over the weekend on my experience with the Apple Watch Sport Space Grey 42mm.