According to a blog post from the Wall Street Journal‘s Lorraine Luk, Apple has ordered 10 million iPad minis from manufacturing partners. Luk believes that these 10 million iPad minis will be shipped in the fourth quarter of this year, and that Apple’s expecting strong demand for the device.
Some component suppliers to Apple in Asia say they have received orders to make more than 10 million units of the smaller tablets in the fourth quarter. That is roughly double the order that were placed for Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets in the same quarter, these suppliers say.
If true, Apple believes the device will out sell the Kindle Fire. The report points out that Apple’s order for iPad minis doubles the number of Kindle Fires that have been ordered by Amazon for the fourth quarter. If I was a betting man, and Apple actually ships iPad minis, I’d expect the device, rumored to be cheaper than the current iPad options, will sell like mad. iPads are already selling extremely well. Can you imagine what a cheaper version could do?
