It’s not much of a secret that Apple’s iPad has bulldozed through the tablet market and taken no prisoners, but it seems the meteoric ascent isn’t quite done yet. Foxconn, Apple’s contracted manufacturer of iPad bits, is ramping up production as we head into the year’s third business quarter, but that’s not all: Digitimes has reported a rumor that Foxconn expects to send 20 million iPads to Apple by the end of September. AllThingsD outlines the monumental increase in sales this would represent:
That’s extraordinary growth, considering the company sold just 4.19 million iPads during the first full quarter it was available. Still, it’s hardly surprising. Given back-to-school sales, foundering competition and massive demand in new markets like China, an accleration in iPad volume was really inevitable.
Apple already sold 9.25 million iPads in the second quarter of the year, and a leap of this sort would represent roughly 60% growth over those already impressive numbers.
Interestingly, there’s still a paucity of real competition for the iPad. Though many companies have boasted their “iPad Killer” tablets, 2011 was not a kind year for Apple’s rivals. The RIM PlayBook has met with scathingly negative reviews and dramatically failed to meet RIM’s sales projections, and the HP TouchPad sold so poorly that HP took it off the shelves after only a month and rushed to liquidate the rest of inventory for only $99 per unit. Apple hasn’t just managed to hit the ball out of the park, but it appears there’s no-one in the outfield to catch the ball anyway.
Source: AllThingsD
