iPhone 7 Delivery Delays – Where is the stock?

The Apple iPhone 7 delivery delays have created a maelstrom of comments across internet forums from extremely dissatisfied customers.

Following our article on finding the best value iPhone 7 contract, those who pre-ordered the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus on 9th September are facing massive delays as Apple struggles to ship enough stock.

Broken Promises

All the UK network operators including EE, O2 and Vodafone promised those ordering the iPhone 7 on 9th September that they would receive their phones on the launch day of Friday 16 September.

Late on Thursday 15 September it transpired that Apple did not deliver the expected quantities of the new phone to their network partners, leaving the networks having to deal with thousands of dissatisfied customers and trying to explain the iPhone 7 delivery delay.

Unfortunately, many of the networks do not appear to have the systems or processes in place to reliably and consistently keep their customers updated on anticipated delivery dates and are instead sending out blanket messages that their iPhone 7 delivery will be delayed between 21 and 28 days.

The EE Community Forum has now logged hundreds of complaints from customers that stretches to over 100 pages long.

The main complaint against EE and the other networks is the lack of information specific to a customer’s order and the wildly varying responses from customer service advisers that appear to be equally clueless.

Although EE does appear to have received a delivery earlier this week, they have not been forthcoming on the quantities or models received. It now appears that 32Gb models are starting to slowly ship but the iPhone 7 Plus in Black and Jet Black with 128Gb and 256Gb is no where to be seen.

Apple, on the other hand, seem to be prioritising stock for their own customers as those who have ordered directly with Apple are receiving their phones or have been given a more accurate iPhone delivery estimate.

Stock Shortages

What is incredulous to us at Buzzpods is that the launch and subsequent demand for the new iPhone is an annual event that Apple and the Networks should be able to accurately plan for, but we seem to have the same mess every year.

Even though demand for the iPhone 7 is high, it appears it is no larger than previous years, in fact demand for the iPhone 7 is lower than the iPhone 6, so why the shortage ?

According to research firm Localytics, launch sales of the iPhone 7 are no different to last year and lower than the iPhone 6.

The iPhone 7 captured 1% of the mobile market on launch weekend as did the iPhone 6S the previous year whereas the iPhone 6 took 3% on its first weekend. The iPhone 7 Plus captured 0.2% market share which is lower than the iPhone 6 plus and the iPhone 6S PLus that captured 0.3% market share at launch.

Could this be a cynical marketing ploy for Apple to create media hype around a new iPhone that is not significantly different from last year’s model or is their manufacturing and supply chain just not up to the task ?

[styled_box title=”UPDATE (23 Sep 2016): Movement in Deliveries” class=””] It appears that stock from Apple to the networks is picking up pace.

Networks are receiving new deliveries every day or two and pre-orders are starting to be fulfilled.

Despite this, the higher capacity Jet Black models seem to be in extremely short supply with networks quoting up to 21 days for those pre-orders to be fulfilled.

On Apple’s own website, Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus models are quoting November delivery if you order today.

EE is showing good stock levels for most standard iPhone 7 phones in all colours other than Matt Black and Jet Black.

For those waiting on a flagship Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus delivery may have a little longer to wait.
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