Foxconn said to be making 150,000 iPhone 5s a day

Production of Apple's next iPhone is said to be in full swing, with the company on track to have some 5 million to 6 million phones ready by the end of the month, according to a new report.

Citing anonymous industry sources, supply chain tracker DigiTimes today said original equipment manufacturer Foxconn Electronics, which has made Apple goods in the past, is currently producing 150,000 iPhone 5 units a day.

DigiTimes added that Foxconn is joined by Pegatron Technology, which will produce around 15 percent of the devices for Apple, but those units may not ship until 2012. That contradicts a report from last month (also by DigiTimes), that Pegatron had been tapped to produce 10 million units of the unannounced device, with the first shipments going out this month.

How many units Apple has available at launch is of special interest given shortages with previous hardware releases. With the previous launch, Apple and its carrier partners said they were overwhelmed with the largest number of preorders ever taken in a single day, and as a result ship times for new customers were pushed back.

Such bottlenecks are reportedly what caused European carrier Deutsche Telekom to begin planning ahead, beginning a program over the weekend that would give customers a way to reserve Apple's next iPhone, ahead of its official announcement and preorder programs. Add to that the possibility of more carriers, including T-Mobile and Sprint in the U.S. and additional carriers in China, and that potentially spreads the pool of units that much thinner.

Apple is expected to take the wraps off the next version of the iPhone as soon as this month, with a launch to follow in the first part of October. The timing marks a departure from the company's longstanding tradition of a summer release, though it coincides with when Apple typically holds its annual event to spruce up its lineup of iPods.