Why the price of the iPhone 5/5C/5S screen repair has jumped in the last week month or two?
Many different stories have been floating around, basically the price increase is due to a shortage in the market of physical stock. User Mobilesentrix of Reddit explains what’s happening.
“What is short in the market? 1. I need to educate everyone on what is composed of an LCD assembly and what is China’s role in manufacturing those lcds. So Originally Apple has given authority to 3 manufacturers to make their LCD’s (LG, Sharp, and Samsung) now they have a technology that the Chinese manufacturers can not copy and don’t have the manufacturing capabilities to make the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). So the fact is that China cannot make the main component of the LCD. However, China can make the backlight, attached to the LCD. They can make the polarizer, the OCA the Flex cable of the LCD, the glass the Frame. However when it comes to the main component the LCD they lack that capability. So when they saw there is a shortage of material they are referring to that component.
Where was China getting the materials from before ? 20-25% of the LCD in China come from refurbishing a broken glass LCD assembly. However the main supply of LCD’s came from a leak in the Apple supply chain. And factories in China get access to the raw material directly. Now all the iPhone 5/ iPhone 5s / iPhone 5c have the same raw component, but the flex cable is different which determines with motherboard to fit with
So what happened now? Honestly , I don’t even know the exact answer. To my knowledge it is 2 thing. 1 Apple has tighter the security in their supply chain and now the factories are relying on the 20-25% of the material coming in from broken screens. Or option 2 is that Apple has put a stress on the factories to manufacture more LCD’s for the launch of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6c and 6s plus. So the factories don’t have time to make extra material when Apple is on their tail. also there is rumors that Apple plans on using the iPhone 5/5s/5c LCD on the iPhone 6c. But that is just a Rumor no guarantee.
When should this last till? In my opinion this price increase will last till the end of year. Even mid January (till the end of Chinese New Years)
What can you do? I would just recommend, finding a good supplier for your broken screens. (I would recommend ourselves, but you are more then welcome to shop around), and their is a big return on that. Also don’t worry as the whole market is short not just you, so the customer has very few options. Also keep extra LCD’s on hand, so you don’t have to feel the wrath of the shortage.
Who is the cheapest now ? Don’t always go by price, as the main focus should be quality, as 2 or 3 dollars to get a cheap screens ends up with angry customers or frustrated techs with having to do a repair 2 or 3 times to find a good quality part. But the trust is that other suppliers have a shortage on LCD’s, and they don’t want to say they have run out so they will jack up the price, so limit people on buying large quantities. We might be out, but we get shipments in daily and anyone of the sales people here work really well with their store owners to keep them well stocked.”