Foxconn Electronics China have been recently announced they will ship Apple’s iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipment to reach 400,000-600,000 units, according to sources from Taiwan-based component makers.
It seems that the iPad 2 will ship as soon as the end of February in 2011. Apple originally planned to start mass production in January, but because the device’s firmware is currently still in testing, Apple has been postponing the schedule. Since Foxconn’s new plants in Chengdu are still in pilot production, iPad 2 will be mainly supplied by its Shenzhen plants, while the company’s upstream component partners have all been notified of the shipments schedule.
Currently, iPad’s shipments on the supply side are higher than channel sales, indicating that Apple has potential inventory issues, although it seems that Apple will not stop the production yet. By the end of January, shipments are expected to drop significantly because of stock depletion and then the launch of iPad 2 in April
