Apple Supplier Ships First Batch of HomePods

Inventec, one of two companies commissioned by Apple to assemble its HomePod Siri speaker, has reportedly dispatched one million units of the device, a Taipei Times report confirmed earlier this week.

Citing unnamed industry sources who spoke to the paper, the report goes on to note that amount is of an estimated 10-12 million units expected from the firm by the end of 2018.

Hon Hai Precision Co., the parent company of Apple’s iPhone assembly partner, Foxconn, is the other manufacturer tapped to produce HomePod, according to previous reports covering the device’s status spanning as far back as last fall.

HomePod Release Date

HomePod was unveiled at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last June, whereat the Siri-powered smart speaker was slated to hit store shelves in December of 2017.

In November, however, Apple made the abrupt decision to postpone HomePod’s highly anticipated release, pushing it into 2018. The company said, “we need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers.”

While today’s report is certainly promising that HomePod is closer than we think, it’s definitely worth noting that we’ve yet to hear so much as a word from Apple about the speaker’s availability — so as always, we recommend taking this news with a grain of salt until further notice.

While the accuracy of today’s report remains unconfirmed, it’s probably the least of Apple’s concerns at this point, anyway. The company has been lagging on HomePod far longer than it’s been known to exist — and other companies, like Samsung and Amazon have been capitalizing on that with their HomePod competitors. Ultimately, it’s time that’ll tell if HomePod catches on with consumers, especially amid the rising sea of much cheaper alternatives.

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