The HTC M7 is not even out yet officially and there’s already a report out there saying that the Taiwanese company will have a hard time making enough devices to go around, as it’s currently experiencing some serious component shortages.

The next flagship device of the company and a very important handset for a struggling Android maker, the M7 is supposed to be unveiled at a special event on February 19 and hit stores thereafter.

But in case you want to get your hands on the handset as fast as possible you may want to order one as soon as its released, at least if this report is to be believed.

Citigroup analyst Kevin Chang wrote in a recent note to investors that HTC’s M7 shipments are affected by a “low yield rate of some components such as metal casings and antennas.” Consequently, M7 shipments for Q1 2013 are now said to be at around 500,000, down from an initial forecast of 3 million.

Analysts don’t always get it right, so we can only hope for HTC’s sake that the numbers aren’t accurately describing the situation of M7 production. But let’s also not forget that just yesterday we heard that HTC’s performance for Q1 2013 will be anything but stellar, so the company is clearly still having a lot of issues to fix. In case you were wondering, Citigroup is maintaing a “sell” rating for HTC stock.

Are you buying the M7 this year?