A report from Taiwan-based DigiTimes claims that Apple has placed orders with its suppliers for 65 million 9.7-inch iPad touch-panel screens – 35m with LG Display and 15m each with Samsung and Chimei Innolux. By way of comparison, Apple ordered only 16.75m iPad screens in 2010 – although that number was ramping up as the year wound down, with 2.7m screens being produced in November alone.
If the reported 2011 order figure is accurate – and some doubt that it is – it would mark a substantial increase on most industry projections of 45-48m iPads shipped in 2011. Other estimates lowball that figure at ‘only’ 28m. And nary an Apple-approved gambling app installed on any of them. *sigh*
For the record, the hype about Apple’s magic tablet clearly extends beyond the fanboys, as reflected in end of year online search analysis conducted by the Daily Beast, using aggregated search data from Google, Yahoo and AOL, combined with Twitter’s top trends. The iPad performed quite well, as evidenced by the numbers below. Add this to the mounting pile of evidence to suggest that mobile computing is (as Calvin Ayre observed) no longer thinking about becoming the preferred method of accessing the internet, it’s just doing it.
2010 APPLE iPAD SEARCH RANKINGS:
#2: Google – Trends
#1: Google – Shopping
#1 Twitter – Tech/Shopping
#1 Yahoo – Tech
#1 AOL – Shopping
#3 Yahoo – Trends
#6 Twitter – Total
