Apple wants to ship 65 million iPads in 2011

Yes, that’s a very massive number. Though they didn’t really mention if that’s the original iPad or the new iPad as nobody mentioned about it, and the size are still the same. There’s also no mention of what type of panel are Apple ordering. Digitimes receives this number from the amount of LCD orders Cupertino ordered. Insiders has said that LG Display is asked to ship about 35 million of the tablet’s displays, but the original iPad’s sales was not that promising due to LG unable to cope with the massive demand. So for 2011 Samsung and Chimei Innolux are said to contribute some to Apple. Besides the 35 million from LG Display, each of the other two companies is said to deliver about 15 million of their own to Apple. Over-confidence and over-commitment from Apple?

Apple shipped about 16.76 million iPads in 2010, which is the first year the popular tablet is introduced. November alone saw 2.7 million iPad displays for Apple from LG and Samsung. These numbers are not constructive but it’s still a good estimation. Compared to the 65 million that Apple requested, this is still a very big bump.

Then again, the iPad’s introduction to foreign countries was rather slow, as Apple had to establish a market in every country. Seeing the trend of the iPhone when it was launched and compared it to the iPhone’s current market, Apple is probably trying to avoid having short supply cutting sales down. Apple is also famous for ordering large chunk of flash memory which will pull down prices significantly when buying in extremely huge bulk. It’s also a fail-safe strategy to avoid surprise defect of a certain component from a specific manufacturers, which is common in the industry.

If the estimates are close to Apple’s actual shipping goals, it could help the iPad lead the tablet market for longer than thought. Analyst guesses have had Apple shipping roughly 40 million iPads in 2011, and delivering almost two thirds more could keep it the market leader if Android and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets don’t keep pace.