A report by a US-focused wireless analyst suggests that the global shortage of chipsets is affecting the supply of lower-cost Android phones in the US.

The best line of the report, conducted by Wave7 Research and reported by PC Mag, is that a T-Mobile store manager Jeff Moore of Wave7 said the shortage affects “everyone but Apple”.

Details:

• They’re not flagships: Samsung’s Galaxy S21 and S21 Ultra are said to be readily available.
• But older or cheaper phones remain sold out: Verizon had or has no availability of the Galaxy A02s, Note 20, Galaxy A01, Galaxy A21 and Galaxy A51, the report said.
• The same applies to OnePlus: The cheaper OnePlus Nord N200 offer sold well in July – as high as the top seller at Metro in July with a share of 20% in this network – but “in the midst of a tight supply of certain OnePlus devices” the share fell to 10% in August.
• Nevertheless: “The shortage of Samsung phones has helped to consolidate OnePlus ‘position as the best Android alternative,” says the report, with OnePlus’ share at T-Mobile reaching an all-time high of 8%.

Of course, it’s just a report, and a T-Mobile executive in another location might say otherwise. Outside the US, a Xiaomi factory had to stop producing certain phones with warnings that it was spreading months after the first signs of bottlenecks appeared.

• And maybe Apple itself warns of problems, unlike the Wave7 research report.

from CNBC In late July, when Tim Cook warned investors and analysts of shortages, he said that silicon “supply shortages” will affect sales of the iPhone as well as the iPad:

• “Cook said the shortage is not in the powerful processors Apple has made for its devices, but rather in what are known as” legacy nodes “or chips that perform everyday functions such as driving displays or decoding audio and with older ones Devices.
• “Most of the restrictions that we see are the kind that others see in my opinion, which I would classify as an industry deficiency,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, on a call with analysts.
• “In addition, we have some bottlenecks, the demand was so great and exceeded our own expectations that it is difficult to get the entire set of parts within the delivery times we strive for.”

In this sense:

• Ten years ago today, Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple’s CEO and was appointed by Tim Cook. Cook was previously Apple’s Chief Operating Officer and focused, among other tasks, on “end-to-end management of the Apple supply chain”.
• So, Apple’s own problems will of course be helped if Apple is the biggest dog in the battle for components and the boss was already the guy.