"This stuff has got to hit hard at some point," said Bill Kimberlin, an Apple Store shopper from San Francisco. Apple, based in the Silicon Valley, just 50 miles south of San Francisco, outsources iPhone parts from around East Asia, and its handsets are assembled in China. Apple had to delay product rollouts first in 2020, when new gear was held up for a month because of China's first COVID-19 wave, said Rachel Liao, senior industry analyst with the Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute. In the first quarter this year, she said, lockdowns in China suspended assembly plants, including at least one operated by Pegatron. Pegatron is the No. 2 iPhone assembler, with 25% of orders, after Foxconn. Both companies are based in Taiwan but manufacture in China. Since 2020, the costs of making the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 series have increased "slightly" because of a materials shortage in the semiconductor supply chain, Liao said.