In a Bloomberg report, Foxconn’s chairman Young Liu suggested that this chip shortage could extend into the second quarter of 2022. “Component shortages in the second quarter will be more severe than the first quarter.” It has also been suggested that things are bad enough where some of the parts that Foxconn manufactures has a lead time of an entire year.
This means products that you want to buy will either be in short supply or sold out while the parts are being made. According to Foxconn, the parts that will be impacted include semiconductors and display drivers, both of which are heavily used in consumer products such as smartphones and tablets.
Given that Foxconn is known as one of Apple’s manufacturing partners, it is unclear how this will impact the iPhone 13 later this year. Apple’s iPhones are usually hard to get ahold of when they are first released, so combined with the potential shortage, things might be even trickier.