Apple Is Funding II-VI To Accelerate Delivery Of iPhone Components: What You Need To Know

Apple. Inc.'s AAPL flagship product — the iPhone — earned more than half of the company's total revenues in the fiscal year second quarter. It's no wonder the company is pulling out all stops to ensure a continued supply of components that go into this key product.

What Happened: Apple announced a new award of $410 million from its Advanced Manufacturing fund to II-VI Inc. IIVI, which manufacturers vertical-cavity, surface-emitting lasers, or VCSELs, that power Face ID, Memoji, Animoji and Portrait mode selfies.

II-VI also manufactures lasers used in Apple's LiDAR scanner to help deliver realistic augmented reality experiences and improves autofocus in low-light scenes in photos and videos.

Apple noted that the current funding comes on top of the $390 million it had awarded to II-VI in 2017.

Related Link: Why Apple's Stock Sell-Off Is A Golden Buying Opportunity

Why It's Important: The incremental award will create additional capacity and accelerate delivery of future components for iPhone, Apple said. This will create about 700 jobs in Texas, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Apple's expanded partnership with II-VI is part of the company's plans to invest $430 billion and add 20,000 new jobs across the U.S. over the next five years.

To that objective, the company is working with more than 9,000 suppliers across the country who are creating domestic jobs across sectors, including silicon engineering, 5G, and manufacturing.

Related Link: 10 Things Apple Investors May Wish For In 2021

Price Actions: Apple shares were gaining 1.30% to $129.15 and II-VI was advancing 1.18% to $65.32 Wednesday morning.

(Photo by Youssef Sarhan on Unsplash)