A new report from DigiTimes claims that Apple has no plans to make any major upgrades to it’s MacBook Pro lineup in 2018.
The report cites sources within Apple’s supply chain:
The sources revealed that Foxconn had been aggressively working to land more MacBook orders from Apple during the past few years by offering attractive quotes. Since Apple has not had a major upgrade to its MacBook product line since the releases of its new MacBook Pro devices at the end of 2016 and has no plan for one in 2018, the US-based vendor is planning to shift orders for models that are already in mass production to Foxconn to save costs and reduce risks.
It could be possible that Foxconn, Apple’s manufacturing partner, will land a considerable number of additional MacBook orders this year and its likely that this increase would come at the expense of Quanta Computer, Apple’s most recent major MacBook supplier.
The report details that Foxconn has been working to boost its chances of notebook orders from Apple by offering attractive quotes. This means that Apple will switch any upcoming MacBook orders to Foxconn for models that are already in mass production, thus saving costs and reducing risk.
Sources have cited:
Foxconn is expected to begin mass shipments to fulfill the new orders in the second quarter of 2018, said the sources. Foxconn and Quanta both declined to comment on their clients or orders. The sources pointed out that Apple started outsourcing the assembly for some of MacBooks’ components to Foxconn’s plants in Shenzhen, China in the second half of 2017.
However, Quanta is still expected to remain Apple’s biggest supplier in 2018. Research from DigiTimes highlights that out of 15 million MacBooks shipped to Apple a year, the ratio between Quanta and Foxconn has been around 8:2 for the past five years.
Despite this news detailing a lack of major upgrades, this does not necessarily rule out any minor refreshes or updates to the MacBook Pro at some point this year.
