A Bill of Materials (BOM) released by a research institute revealed that the main suppliers for Apple's latest MR (mixed reality) headset Vision Pro still come from China and Taiwan. The two regions are responsible for over half of the overall component supply.
A report from the Chinese research institute Wellsenn XR, which has been following the development of XR technology, pointed out that China's Luxshare-ICT does the assembly for Vision Pro. The assembly production cost for each unit is around US$130. This marks another Apple order that Luxshare received, following their manufacturing contracts for AirPods and some iPhone 15s.
The BOM revealed by Wellsenn XR showed that seven Chinese manufacturers made it onto Vision Pro's supply chain list. In addition to Luxshare, which is responsible for assembly and manufacturing, there is also sensor module supplier Cowell Holdings, lithium battery and power management system supplier Desay Battery, speaker module supplier GoerTek, Vision Pro structural frame/casing supplier EWPT and LY iTech, and IPD electrical focus drive system supplier Zhaowei.
This also highlights that despite the current geopolitical tensions between China and the US leading to an accelerated restructuring of global supply chains, Apple still heavily relies on and has confidence in the Chinese supply chain.
Nevertheless, compared to Chinese suppliers, Apple relies even more heavily on Taiwanese suppliers. A report by Morgan Stanley pointed out that a total of 11 Taiwanese suppliers are included in Vision Pro's supply chain list. They include wafer foundry leader TSMC, sensor and camera lens module supplier Largan, touch display technology supplier GIS-KY, ASE Holdings, Pegatron, Flexium, Zhen Ding-KY, Unimicron, Kinsus, Nanya PCB, and VisEra.
Besides Chinese and Taiwanese suppliers, Vision Pro's suppliers also include South Korea's Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, as well as Japan's Sony.
An analysis by Counterpoint Research pointed out that the suppliers for the Vision Pro are essentially similar to the iPhone supply chain, covering most major consumer electronics component suppliers in the market. It's expected that even when Apple launches a new generation of affordable XR devices in the future, the supplier list will not differ significantly.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman recently revealed that Apple is expected to launch two new XR products in 2025. One is a lower-end MR device named the Apple Vision One. The other is an upgraded version of the Vision Pro called the Vision Pro 2, which is expected to introduce an even more powerful processor chip with faster processing speeds.
