Analyst: Apple to ship 5 million iPads in first half of year

March 10, 2010 // Dylan McGrath, EE Times.com

Apple plans to build at least 5 million units of its forthcoming iPad tablet in the first half of 2010, according to an analyst, who cited production checks.

Five million units of the iPad is good news for several chip suppliers,
including Broadcom Corp., according to Craig Berger, an analyst with
FBR Capital Markets & Co. Berger had previously estimated that
Apple (Cupertino, Calif.) would build between 4 million and 5 million
iPads in the first half of this year. The iPad is believed to utilize a
Broadcom WiFi and Bluetooth transceiver combination solution like the
iPhone 3GS.

FBR also increased its estimates for first quarter iPod and Apple PC
builds. FBR now believes Apple will build 9.3 million iPods during the
quarter, up from an earlier estimate of 4 million. It increased its
estimate for Apple desktop PC builds in the quarter to 1 million, up
from 500,000, and raised its Apple notebook build estimate to 1.7
million from 1 million.



FBR Capital Markets increased its estimates for Apple PC and iPod builds, but cut the number of iPhones it expects the company to make.

But the latest checks revealed that Apple will build only about 6
million iPhones, down 20 percent from the 7.5 million that FBR
previously estimated, Berger said.

On a sequential basis, iPhone and iPod builds are both set to decline
50 percent sequentially, while desktop builds are set to decline 33
percent sequentially and notebook builds are set to decline 43 percent
sequentially, Berger wrote.

Berger said the latest checks are good news for chip suppliers
who sell into Apple's PCs, cinlduign , Intel Corp., Marvell Technology
Group Ltd., LSI Corp. The checks are bad news for suppliers to the
iPhone, including Infineon Technologies AG, Skyworks Solutions Inc.,
TriQuint Semiconductor Inc., Broadcom, Linear Technology Corp.,
National Semiconductor Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc., Berger said.


While lacking specific visibility into what components will be
in the iPad, Berger said FBR believes many of the iPhone chip suppliers
will also sell into the tablet.

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