People familiar with the matter: Apple's first foldable iPhone is only producing a few hundred units per day, and strict quality control standards have slowed down progress.

(Central News Agency, Taipei, comprehensive foreign news report on the 4th) People familiar with the matter revealed to "Nikkei Asia" that Apple's much-anticipated first foldable iPhone can currently only produce "a few hundred units" per day, mainly due to the company's extremely strict quality control standards.

Nikkei Asia reported that sources said the U.S. company was actively working to increase production.

An informed supply chain manager told Nikkei Asia: "Apple has extremely high requirements for product quality and added an additional trial production in August before formal mass production. However, the current production capacity increase is slow, and the daily output as of the end of August is only a few hundred units. Such initial production capacity may not be able to meet market demand."

According to previous reports from Nikkei Asia, Apple has set a goal of producing 8 million to 10 million foldable iPhones this year, hoping to use this new type of product to stimulate the market and boost revenue.

However, unless production can be ramped up more quickly, production targets may not be met, and it may take longer than expected to meet customer demand. Industry executives said that to achieve the original production target of foldable iPhones, tens of thousands of units must be produced every day under normal circumstances.

Apple, headquartered in Cupertino, California, has encountered challenges in the engineering and trial production stages of the foldable iPhone this year because Apple's product quality and durability standards are much higher than those of other smartphone competitors, including testing in more extreme environments, requiring significantly more folding times, and placing higher requirements on screen flatness.

Another person familiar with the matter pointed out: "The flatness of the screen and the performance of the folding hinge are one of the key details that Apple requires to improve production yield."

Two people familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia that Apple conducted additional verification procedures for the foldable iPhone in August to ensure that the phone could be mass-produced according to the established design, which also led to a delay of several weeks in the commercial production schedule.

Apple and its suppliers are working around the clock to increase daily production. However, achieving this will still take time, and previous testing and verification procedures have delayed the original schedule. If the current situation fails to improve, channel inventory may be limited in the early stages of future foldable iPhone sales.