Apple is causing major problems for its competitors in the touch screen tablets market, and it’s not just through their higher sales and popularity. The software and hardware giant has set itself a goal of selling at least 40 million of its iPads this year and to achieve this feat it has monopolized around 60% of all the touchscreen panels produced in the world, effectively leaving the other tablet manufacturers facing a severe shortage of screens for the production of their devices, say reports from some major component makers.
Some of the other major tablet PC makers complain that Apple’s hegemony in the touch panel market is causing them a shortage of components for their products which in turn leads to them not being able to meet their demands through their shipment volumes; this is especially the case with the smaller players in the market. TPK and Wintek, who are among the largest producers of touch panels in the world, are already using most of their capacity to meet Apple’s demand requirements. However, with other major companies such as Research in Motion, Hewlett- Packard and Motorola also striving to get their hands on the remaining hardware options available, second tier producers of tablet computers have almost been squeezed out of the market.
Some sources from among the iPad distributors have revealed that Apple had forecast very high figures for iPad orders to its OEM partners in 2010. The major problem faced by apple was not low production capacities but the scarcity in the supply of touch screen panels. With it reserving such a major chunk of the panel market, Apple has achieved two-fold benefits; expanding its sales through increasing the production capacity to meet increasing orders, and indirectly blocking the production of its closest competitors by creating a shortage of screens in the market.
