Apple has reportedly placed an order for 100 million A15 chips for the iPhone 13

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple has increased its order of A15 chips for the forthcoming iPhone 13 to over 100 million, according to supply chain sources cited by CNBeta.

If true, this is a huge lift in numbers compared to last autumn’s release of the iPhone 12, which reportedly had a prelaunch order of 75 million chips.

This confidence appears pretty well justified as earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced record-breaking revenues of $65.6 billion in the first fiscal quarter of 2021 – around $5 billion more than analysts had predicted - despite the manufacturing shortages caused by the ongoing pandemic. The bump in sales was driven by a record number of people upgrading their iPhones in the last quarter of 2020 (iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max sold best during that period).

The report from CNBeta claims that the new chip will feature a six-core CPU with four high-efficiency cores and two high-performance cores. While that’s the same CPU power as the existing A14, it should still improve performance and battery life.

Mary is a staff writer at What Hi-Fi? and has over a decade of experience working as a sound engineer mixing live events, music and theatre. Her mixing credits include productions at The National Theatre and in the West End, as well as original musicals composed by Mark Knopfler, Tori Amos, Guy Chambers, Howard Goodall and Dan Gillespie Sells.