Apple Inc, which sold its millionth iPad last week, will begin selling the device in the UK and eight other countries on May 28, and offer the tablet computer in nine additional markets in July.
The first group of countries also includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland, the company said in a statement on Friday. Customers can pre-order beginning tomorrow.
As demand for the iPad outpaced supply in the US, chief executive officer Steve Jobs delayed overseas shipments by about a month, to the end of this month. The touch-screen device began selling in the US on April 3, and its 3G version went on sale last week.
Jobs said last week that the company had sold the first 1 million iPads in 28 days, while the iPhone had taken 74 days to reach that mark.
The nine countries that will start getting the iPad in July are: Austria, Belgium, Mexico, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore, Apple said.
Softbank Corp, the exclusive iPhone carrier in Japan, will price the iPad at ¥48,960 (US$535) for the basic model with Wi-Fi capability and 16 megabytes of memory.
Softbank will begin taking orders tomorrow for the iPad, which will be available in Japan on May 28, it said yesterday in a statement. The cheapest iPad 3G model will cost ¥58,320, Softbank said.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS