Facepalm: Apple is believed to have ended production of its Vision Pro headset amid weak demand from customers. The news comes months after a report claimed that the company would wind down manufacture of the much-hyped mixed-reality headset by the end of October.
Apple is said to have scaled back production of the Vision Pro last summer after building up a large inventory that it believed would last through the year. Now that production has ended, the company reportedly has enough units in stock to meet demand for the device’s remaining lifespan through 2025.
According to an earlier report by The Information, most Vision Pro suppliers produced enough components by October for 500,000 to 600,000 headsets. However, some of them apparently stopped manufacturing components as early as May 2024 based on Apple’s weak sales forecasts.
Luxshare, the Chinese contract manufacturer producing the Vision Pro, was reportedly told by Apple in November that it will need to wind down production by the end of this year. Toward the end of its production run, Luxshare was believed to have been making around 1,000 units per day, about half of its peak production rate.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple sold fewer than 500,000 units of the Vision Pro since launch. While many returned the product after experiencing headaches, vision issues, neck pain, and motion sickness, even the people who kept it are reportedly not using it as much as Apple expected, largely due to the lack of compelling apps and games.
It is worth noting that an earlier report claimed Apple will release an updated version of the first-generation Vision Pro with a faster chip, but we haven’t heard anything about it in a while. It’s unclear whether that project is still in the works, or if Apple has canceled those plans permanently.
The Vision Pro was unveiled in June 2023 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference and became available for purchase in February 2024. The device launched to mixed reviews from the media and never set the sales charts ablaze, mostly due to its astronomical price-tag.
Apple is rumored to be working on two new mixed-reality headsets: a second-generation Vision Pro and a new low-cost model that could bring in more sales. However, the company is believed to have suspended development of the former for at least a year to focus on the affordable variant. Cupertino is betting big on the low-cost headset, and has reportedly told suppliers that it expects to sell four million units of this device over its lifespan.
