Barclays PLC has lowered its estimates for shipments of Apple Inc’s iPads in the first quarter of next year because of a shortage of the retina display used in the second-generation iPad Mini.
First-quarter iPad shipments are now forecast to total 19 million to 20 million, down from Barclays’ 20 million-to-22 million prior estimate.
The revised shipments consist of 2 million of the iPad 2, 7 million of the iPad Air, 6 million to 7 million of the original iPad Mini and 4 million of the iPad Mini with retina display, according to the bank’s forecast.
“We do not expect the new iPad series to provide upside [factors] and believe iPad Mini with retina will see a bottleneck from the panel shortage,” Kirk Yang (楊應超), Barclays’ head of technology hardware research for Asia excluding Japan, said in a note to clients.
The iPad product lines, including the new iPad Air and iPad Mini with retina display, are assembled by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海) and Pegatron Corp (和碩).
The retina display of the new iPad Mini is supplied by South Korea’s LG Display Co, according to an analysis by the US Web site, iFixit.
Yang also cut his projection for iPhone shipments in the January-to-March period from between 42 million and 44 million to between 40 million and 42 million.
They include 28 million to 30 million of the iPhone 5S, 8 million of the iPhone 5C and 4 million of the iPhone 4S. Yang did not give a reason for the revision.
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