Delivery times stretch as MacBook Pro shortages loom

If you’re thinking about ordering one of the new MacBook Pros, it’s worth bearing in mind that it may take a while to arrive. In fact, we can inform you that it may take well over a month before you receive your laptop, and you could be waiting until next year.

Looking at the UK Apple store at time of writing, all four starting configurations of the 14in MacBook Pro (both colours, and with 8- and 10-core CPUs) offer delivery estimates of 2-9 December, a wait of between 22 days and 29 days. All six configurations of the 16in Pro give the same estimate.

(For comparison, all six versions of the MacBook Air are giving us estimated dates of 12-16 November, a wait of just 2-6 days.)

But for once UK consumers are getting off lightly compared to their transatlantic friends. At the US Apple Store, delivery times are even longer, with customers warned not to expect delivery until early January.

Leaving aside the high demand on almost any new Apple product (which is predictable), one likely reason for the long delivery times is the global chip shortage, which is plaguing much of the electronics industry at the moment. So it is not necessarily the case that the new models are in greater demand than their predecessors.

On a related note, there are long lead times for other Apple products at the moment, including the iPhone 13, iPad and Apple Watch. There are fears, indeed, that wide-reaching Christmas shortages could make for an underwhelming deals season, with demand likely to outstrip supply and retailers consequently under little pressure to discount significantly.

This article originally appeared on Macworld Sweden. Translation (using DeepL) and additional reporting by David Price.