Sony seems to be having issues related to supplying enough units of their camera sensors to Chinese manufacturers due to the high number of orders placed by Apple for their upcoming iPhone 6C. The C series will apparently be there as an option here on out for customers who prefer to have a smaller 4 inch device.
Sony is able to only meet half the demand from the Chinese manufacturers as rest of the production is directed towards the iPhone 6C. Huawei for example will only be able to ship 50% of the devices that it planned to ship with Sony sensors. ZTE, Oppo and Coolpad have to scale their output even lower at 10-30%.
As a result, these companies might have to seek alternatives from other brands such as Samsung, Toshiba or OmniVision. HTC had to approach Toshiba in order to help them with the HTC M9 and that might have been an issue with not getting enough supply as well. Since manufacturers prioritize orders based on a clients size and the number of orders, it’s not uncommon for such problems to arise. Apple being one of the biggest players in the smartphone industry will be given a priority over most other companies.