Inventec Appliances — the supplier responsible for producing Apple’s AirPods — claims the HomePod home speaker will be available in limited quantities in the fourth quarter of this year, Nikkei Asian Review reports. “We will finally ship the smart home device this year, but its contribution will be fairly limited and hopefully that will improve next year,” Inventec Appliances President David Ho said during his company’s earnings call, never specificallly mentioing the HomePod by name. An unnamed source, however, confirmed Inventec would have the HomePod available by December, backing up Apple’s earlier availability estimate, along with the likely reason behind its expected release in only three countries. Apple is rumored to be dealing with supply constraints on the iPhone 8 ahead if its launch as well, and the AirPods already being supplied by Inventec have also been in notoriously low supply since their launch last year.
