LONDON – Taiwanese suppliers are getting ready to ship components for the iPad Mini in August to meet a manufacturing start of September, according to a
Taiwan Economic News report, that cited unnamed wire services as its sources.
AU Optronics (AUO), F-TPK, and Taiwan Surface Mounting Technology were all mentioned as likely to see strong third quarter sales as a result of the iPad Mini business. AUO makes LCDs while F-TPK is a touch-screen layer manufacturer.
The Apple iPad Mini, with a screen size of 7.85 inch and a resolution of 1024 pixels by 768 pixels is expected to go on sale in September or October at a price of between $249 and $299, the report said. It is expected to ship about 10 million units in 2012.
Component orders for the iPad Mini are expected to have beneficial effect in the Taiwan electronics economy in the second-half of 2013, the report said.
The iPad Mini has been rumored for some time during this year but its introduction would go against the wishes of Apple founder and long-time CEO Steve Jobs, who died in October 2011. It is thought the iPad Mini is being introduced to compete with low-cost rivals such as the Google Nexus 7 and the Amazon Kindle
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