Sunny Optical becomes main iPhone 14 lens supplier, says Kuo

As the release of the iPhone 14 range nears, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple is increasingly concentrating its wide-camera 7P lens orders on one supplier.

The forthcoming iPhone 14 Pro has been rumored to add a larger 48mp sensor, but it will continue to have the range of lenses. Now analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that his latest supply chain information shows that component manufacturer Sunny Optical is gaining an increasing share of Apple's orders.

In his fuller post expanding on the tweet about Sunny Optical, Kuo says that the company's "capacity has increased significantly," and it is gaining a greater proportion of Apple's wide-camera 7P lens orders.

"Sunny Optical is the largest supplier of wide-camera 7P lenses for iPhone 14 series," writes Kuo, "and its supply ratio significantly exceeds Largan, Genius, and market consensus."

It's not clear what Kuo means by the ratio exceeding "market consensus," but he does give more specific details about the orders.

"The shipment allocation of Sunny Optical's high-end wide 7P lens (used in two high-end iPhone 14 Pro) and lower-end wide 7P lens (used in two lower-end iPhone 14) was 50-60% and 55- 65%, respectively," he wrote. "The proportion of the supply of Largan and Genius is about the same."

Kuo says that Sunny Optical's increased capacity to produce the lenses mean that "the company will continue the price war to obtain more Apple orders."

The figures are based on what Kuo says is his "latest survey," but he does also predict that Sunny Optical "may become the main supplier of the ToF lens for iPhone 15 in 2023." Currently the iPhone's Time of Flight system, used in in its LiDAR feature, is mainly provided by Genius.

Aside from potential camera improvements, the forthcoming iPhone 14 range is expected to be very similar to the current iPhone 13 models.