Sam Oliver
Estimated shipping times for both of Apple's new iMac models dramatically improved on Saturday, going from weeks to just one to three business days.
The changes apply to both the 21.5-inch model and the 27-inch variety, in all of the default available processor speeds. Just this week, the 21.5-inch model was estimated to ship in two to three weeks, while the 27-inch model was advertised to take up to a month to ship.
The first signs that iMac availability was improving came in January, when Apple saw its overall domestic Mac sales surge up 31 percent year over year. The new iMacs debuted in December in extremely limited supply, which contributed to a 17 percent drop in sales in the holiday quarter.
The new iMacs were plagued with production issues when new, thinner desktops went on sale. It's been reported that those issues came from a unique screen lamination process utilized in the design.
With shipping times for the iMacs having dramatically improved, any improvements to production could pave the way for a redesigned Thunderbolt Display that would feature the same slim profile as the new iMacs. Apple's current model of the 27-inch Thunderbolt Display has been in limited supply at resellers in recent months, and a drawdown in inventory frequently signals Apple is planning to introduce new hardware to the market.
As for the Mac, analysts generally expect that Apple will see sales rebound this quarter thanks to improved availability of the new iMac models. The company also recently improved speeds and cut prices on its Retina MacBook Pro models, which is expected to help boost sales.
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49 Comments
It's still 4-6 weeks here in the uk. Maybe they prioritised the homeland.
1) I wonder if they go a new assembly line going, perfected a process that was holding them up, or got a new supplier for components, got better machinery for making these new Macs (like whatever does the friction-stir welding or bonds the display to the glass), or they simply caught up with demand. 2) I'm surprised that they didn't do the typical stepping down by one week for each model until they reached 1-3 days. [quote name="virtua" url="/t/156265/apples-shipping-times-for-both-21-5-27-imac-improve-to-1-3-days#post_2286768"]It's still 4-6 weeks here in the uk. Maybe they prioritised the homeland.[/quote] They definitely do but it might not be Nationalism so much as the US is clearly their single largest network for any given product at this point. On top of that it might be the nation they have the least per unit overhead due to regulations and economies of scale differences as packaged Macs for other countries are slightly different.
It appears to be just US and Canada. Presumably Apple has managed to build up stock levels in their North American warehouses so they have enough standard configuration models to meet expected demand. If anything is customised, the delivery estimate drops back to 2-3 weeks, therefore manufacturing in China still has a backlog.
NZ and Australia are still 2-3 or 3-4 weeks. Not sure why the UK is worse.
Hopefully countries outside North America will have better availability of standard configuration models soon, then we should start to see the lead time decrease on custom configurations.
Any changes to the configuration will result in a 2-3 week deliver still. Even changing it from a magic mouse to trackpad triggered it. They are just stockpiling low-end configuration.
Let's hope availability improves quickly! I am waiting for Samsung now to sell a carbon clone of the IMac.