Suppliers get ready for the iPhone 5 and iPad 3

In Taiwan, suppliers are getting ready to ramp up production of the future iPhone 5 and iPad 3 with it anticipated the devices will be unveiled in September for a release in October.

It’s still only a rumour, but assemblers and component suppliers in Taiwan seem to be preparing for increased production. According to Digitimes, these two groups are preparing for the production of the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 tablet which will likely be unveiled in September and will be available on shelves from October 2011.

The Taiwanese sources have also provided details: as always, Foxconn will be handling the general assembly, Simplo and Dynapack the batteries, TPK and Wintek for the tactile displays, Catcher for the chassis and Largan Precision for the camera lenses.

The same sources deny the existence of numerous iPhone models, meaning that a low cost iPhone for emerging markets doesn’t exist (unless Apple uses an existing model, like the iPhone 3GS, for this strategy), with only a single iPhone model being developed.


Maintaining the pressure on the competition
As for the iPad 3 tablet, its production program is being finalised, with the first samples to be ready in August, and mass production to take place in September/October. In the third quarter, Apple could hope to ship 6 to 7 million units of the new iPhone which, when added to the iPhone 4’s production, could lead to total production volumes of 24 to 25 million units – with just as many in the last quarter.

With such capacity, Apple could ship a respectable 85 million Smartphones in 2011. For the iPad tablets, volumes could pass 12 million units (iPad 2 and future iPad 3) in the third quarter, which would allow the company to reach their objective of shipping 40 million iPad tablets this year.

They are certainly not giving the competition a break, choking up the market so that there is no room for others to install themselves. The non-iOS tablet manufacturers are at this time fighting between themselves for market share and the increased number of similar product releases has blocked any one manufacturer from standing out from the others.

These elements should also help reassure investors, after the first half of the year was not as good as expected due to the Japanese earthquake and increased competition among products and competing services.