Source: Wikipedia.
GSM Dome reports that “Sony’s production line can meet at the moment just 50% of the market demand received from Chinese companies.” And Digitimes reports that “priority supply goes to Apple and Samsung“.
I don’t know if that affects the Alpha camera launch. Of course Sony produces a lot less APS-C and FF sensor but they are also many times bigger than smartphone cameras. As you can see from the graph above you obviously can exponentially produces many smaller sensor on a single wafer compared to FF sensors. And the image also shows how “bad” working sensor production is higher on larger sensors too.
It may be that both (in different degrees)….the shrinking digital system camera market and the high smartphone sensor request may influence the camera release cycle. The last nine months we only got one new system camera: The Sony A7II. This is unusual for a company like Sony . The last 3-4 years they released plenty of system camera every year (around 6-8 per year). And if there has been a delay or “slowing down” of the release cycle this may explains why some of the rumored cameras announcements have yet not been released…
via Image Sensor World.