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Catcher factory ready to resume production

Rumors that Apple may be cutting back on shipment forecasts for notebooks appear to be untrue, according to sources quoted by Taiwanese trade magazine DigiTimes. The speculation, which was based on chassis supplier Catcher Technology being ordered to halt production temporarily and the hard drive shortage caused by the floods in Thailand, has not been reflected in orders and forecasts from Apple's upstream suppliers.
Catcher's plant is now only waiting on government approval to fully re-open production, having installed equipment to eliminate odors and reduce pollution as ordered by the government. Catcher is one of the lead suppliers for the unibody casings for Apple's notebook lines, the top-selling computers the company makes. Another supplier, Quanta, said that they expect an increase in notebook shipments in the fourth calendar quarter, in large part due to Apple's orders for MacBook Pros.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been known for savvy inventory management and using Apple's large cash reserves to leverage position or procure large quantities of supplies ahead of demand. It is possible that the company sagely stockpiled or arranged alternative suppliers to avoid the kind of supply issues that affected the company during the Japanese disaster last spring, and thus has been only minimally impacted by the hard drive shortages that have plagued the rest of the industry.

Cook indicated in October that the hard drive shortage had been "expected" and was factored into the company's guidance for the calendar fourth quarter, which still saw record high revenue predictions. [via DigiTimes]