“iPad display shipments have collapsed in the first month of this year, according to recent data from NPD and some creative analysis,” John Koetsier reports for VentureBeat. “In fact, full-size iPad display shipments seem to have disappeared, dropping by an astounding 80 percent from December to January, even as Android tablet sales have grown.”

“Obviously, this is potentially a shocking and catastrophic event for Apple… There are two potential reasons why Apple full-size tablet display shipments are vastly down,” Koetsier reports. “One is that Apple is selling far fewer, or planning to sell far fewer, and buying less. Another is that Apple is switching product mix and, perhaps, completely updating the iPad product line … and therefore ordering different sizes of tablet displays.”

Koetsier reports, “Which makes it not so surprising that fairly reliable sources are claiming that Apple will be revamping its iPad lineup as early as — wait for it — next month.”

Read more in the full article here.]

MacDailyNews Take:

I know there has been lots of rumors about order cuts and so forth and so let me just take a moment to make a comment on these, I don’t want to comment on any particular rumor because I would spend my life doing that but I would suggest it’s good to question the accuracy of any kind of rumor about build plans and also stress that even if a particular data point were factual it would be impossible to accurately interpret the data point as to what it meant for our overall business because the supply chain is very complex and we obviously have multiple sources for things; yields might vary, supply performance can vary. The beginning inventory positions can vary, I mean there is just an inordinate long list of things that would make any single data point not a great proxy for what’s going on. – Apple CEO Tim Cook, January 23, 2013

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Next-gen iPad coming as soon as April, iPhone 5S to launch in August, say sources – March 5, 2013