“Sales of the iPad in 2011 could exceed some of the highest expectations, as overseas component makers have indicated that Apple could sell 45 million of its touchscreen tablet this year,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“Analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities is on day 6 of his tech trip to China and Taiwan,” Hughes reports. “In his meetings with component suppliers, sources have revealed expectations that Apple will sell between 40 million and 45 million iPads in 2011.”
Hughes reports, “White said he heard those same figures in a separate visit to Asia last fall, but ‘at the time, this number was difficult for many investors and some in the media to get their heads around.'”
Read more in the full article here.
They can believe in whatever, but all these speculation may actually do bad for Apple since it is already instilled that the goal is to sell 40 million iPads this year, while Apple actually never say this and there is no way how suppliers would know this goal since Apple has more than one supplier of every component.
But if the components will be not produced in enough volumes, Apple will be blamed for missing target.
Not surprising.
The Apple store in my city has had a line every single morning for iPad2s since the day it launched.
Why do the component suppliers talk to these analysts?
What’s in it for them?
hookers?
they are publicizing their own sales and profit outlook: more ipad components more profit for them. If they are publicly traded that’s good for their stock.
Foxconn was hit recently as sales (probably from PCs etc) declined.
also stating they are making ‘classy’ Apple products is good for advertising their abilities to other companies that might give them contracts (just a clothing guy would like to say “we make stuff for Prada” )
Since most people wanted the cameras and were willing to wait for version 2, and a lot of version 1 users are upgrading (myself included) it is not surprising at all.
Tim Cook stated the last quarter that if we could have made more we would have sold more. Apple is working on that supply problem with billions in the bank to make this happen. And designing around these manufacturing speed bumps. By the end of the year, Apple could grow, purchase and demand more capacity than any of these talking heads can imagine.
30 million iPad 2 🙂
Foxconn can only make so much!
Brazil is the next factory to make iPad’s and Apple to sell beyond >55 mil 🙂
Buy AAPL stocks now B4 it goes to $500 in 2012 🙂
Bite an Apple!
some things to chew on about analysts:
Last year’s iPad 1 projections:
Oppenheimer: 1.1 m
Thomas Weisel: 1.1 m
Cannacord: 1.2m
Merrill Lynch 1. 2 m
Deustsche bank: 2.0 m
Susquehanna: 2.1 m
BMO: 2.5 m
Apple of course sold 15 million iPads in 2010.
Last week Gartner and IDC : WP7 will overtake iPhone by 2015 (which the main stream press seems to have
swallowed without much question)
aapl is one of the most undervalued ‘growth’ stocks around. Look at Amazon’s PE of 70, Netflix 80 compared to appl’s 18.
I know a dude who works for FedEx. He says that FedEx would be in trouble if it weren’t for the iPad2 and iPhone 4. He is moving tons of them. Just when he was thinking that he might get a break because the iPad rush was tailing off a bit, the iPad2 came out and doubled the load.
That’s anecdotal evidence from a guy’s aching back that you can trust. Those are units that are really bought and shipped to customers.