Apple may have impressed the mobile world yesterday with its dazzling presentation of the long-awaited iPad mini. But before preorders commence this Friday, rumors abound that initial supplies may be so constrained that it will be difficult to obtain an iPad mini for many customers in the next few weeks.
“We’re now starting to see the issues that [Apple] is having with Samsung,” said Richard Shim, an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch. For now, LGD and AUO are the two primary display panel suppliers for Apple’s iPad mini, and supplies are having a difficult time keeping up with estimated demand.
“The problem is that AUO is a new supplier, and they’re not able to get to the volumes that Apple needs. So, essentially, there’s just one supplier,” Shim added.
The iPad Mini, which costs $329 and comes with a 7.9-inch 1,024×768 display, a dual-core A5 processor, and approximately 10 hours of battery life, is expected to sell millions of units during the holiday quarter of 2012… assuming there’s enough supply to satisfy everyone’s wish list.