Folks at 9to5Mac are reporting that Sony CEO Howard Stringer told Wall Street Journal in an interview at Carnegie Hall in New York City that shipments of camera sensors to Apple have been delayed due to the devastating earthquake in Japan.

Interestingly, Sony currently doesn’t supply camera sensors for Apple’s iOS devices. It’s OmniVision Technologies that supply camera sensors for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch 4G and iPad 2.

This suggests that Sony CEO was probably referring to camera sensors for the yet to be released fifth generation iPhone – iPhone 5.

9to5Mac reports:

Stringer just said that their camera image sensor facility in Sendai was affected by the tsunami. Getting image sensors to Apple will be delayed.

Wall Street Journal has also confirmed the discussion:

Early on, he raised the irony of Sony supplying camera components for Apple devices. It “always puzzles me,” he said. “Why would I make Apple the best camera?”

It is unclear what devices he was talking about as Sony isn’t known to supply key camera components, known as image sensors, to Apple; A Sony spokeswoman declined to comment and an Apple spokesperson couldn’t be reached for comment.

Back in April 2010, Rodman Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar had claimed in a report that Apple had roped in Sony to supply 8-megapixel camera sensors for iPhone 5 while Omnivision would supply the 5-megapixel camera sensors for iPhone 4, which turned out to be accurate.

Apple usually unveils iPhone at the WorldWide Developer Conference 2011 but it is widely speculated that Apple will delay the launch of iPhone 5 until this fall. The exact reason for the delay is not yet known but this could be one of them.

In case you missed all the rumors and speculations  about iPhone 5 then checkout this cool infographic.

What do you think about the possibility of iPhone 5 coming with 8-megapixel camera? Let us know in the comments below.

[via 9to5Mac]