What do you get for the Apple fan who has everything? How about the new iPad Mini due to be released this month. It looks like Apple is gearing up and getting ready for the holiday shopping season. They've ordered ten million iPad minis, and the way iPhones and iPads usually sell out, that means they expect to sell every single one of them fairly quickly.
WSJ is reporting that Asian Apple component suppliers received orders for the parts for ten million smaller iPads throughout this fourth quarter of 2012. It's hard to imagine that number and what it means as far as volume, so for comparison's sake, it's twice the amount of Kindle Fires ordered for the same time period. Twice the amount.
There is some stiff competition for tablets lately, looking at the Kindle Fire, the Nook, the Galaxy Note and others, but Apple is still the leader amongst tablets, although that lead is slipping. Industry experts expect that the Mini will help revamp Apple's efforts to retain their lead in the tablet industry. They have seen their share of the market go from 84% down to 69.6%. However, even with that lower number, the second-largest supplier is Samsung with 9.2%. Apple is wise to try and regain their market share before it falls any lower.
Of course one thing giving the other tablets any type of market share at all is the pricing. The Kindle Fire and the Nook are both $199. It's not expected that the iPad Mini will be that cheap, but RBS analyst Wanli Wang was quoted by the WSJ saying that if it's anywhere below $300, it will be a big hit.
Photo Credit: CNET
