iBelieve
Foxconn Electronics' Chinese plants have apparently been told that they will ship Apple's highly anticipated second version of the iPad within the next 100 days, which places the shipment date towards the end of February.
The rumours have been circulated by Asia-based publication DigiTimes, which reported that component makers in Taiwan said initial shipments will total between 400,000 and 600,000 units. However, Foxconn has neither dismissed nor confirmed the rumours.
According to DigiTimes' sources, Apple has pushed back the shipment date to late February as it is currently still testing its fabled new tablet, which was apparently expected to be start mass production in January 2011.
Apple has previously said it has shifted 4.19m original iPads in Q3 of this year and has just started selling its popular tablet in Latin America and South Korea, bolstering sales which along with Christmas demand are expected to top 7m in Q4.
Apparently despite high sales, Apple's shipments on the supply side are higher than channel sales, hinting at possible inventory issues, according to the news site. Its sources reportedly expect shipments in early February to dive as the company uses up stock of the original iPad before the rumoured launch of version 2 in April.
