“Rodman & Renshaw’s Ashok Kumar has issued a note to clients loaded with nuggets that, if true, would spell bad news for tablet computers,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
• Supply chain checks that suggest that Apple’s (AAPL) monthly iPad production rate is unlikely to exceed 2 million per month by year’s end — considerably less than the 3 million/mos. some had predicted. That would put those 6+ million sales estimates for the December quarter at risk.
• Unspecified “anecdotal evidence” that the MacBook Air is cannibalizing the iPad.
Full article here.
John Gruber wrote for Daring Fireball back in September, “Regarding the then-imminent iPad, Kumar told CNet on January 20: ‘Apple will have two different (offerings). Taking a page out of the Google book, one will be subsidized through a (telecommunications) carrier and the other one will be direct through their stores.’
“Wrong. The iPad comes in both 3G/Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi-only flavors, but both are sold directly from Apple, with no carrier subsidies (and no contracts),” Gruber wrote.
Gruber reported, “One day later, just a week before the iPad was unveiled as a GSM device on AT&T in the U.S., Kumar gave the following ‘exclusive’ information to TheStreet.com: ‘The hotly anticipated Apple Tablet — or the Apple Newton II — will feature a wireless chip made by Qualcomm. This discrete little fact would confirm that Apple has chosen Verizon as its telco partner, says Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar.’
Gruber continued, “Right after the iPad went on sale in April, Kumar had this to say about demand in a report by The Financial Times: ‘Apple had told manufacturers it wanted to produce a million iPads per month and ‘that’s clearly in excess of demand,’ said Ashok Kumar, an industry analyst at Rodman & Renshaw. ‘Eventually it will find a niche and a success, but it’s not going to be of the scale and scope of the iPhone.'”
Gruber reported, “In fact, the supply of iPads was unable to meet demand until just a few weeks ago. The iPad is selling faster in its first year than the iPhone did.”
Full article here.