The iPad 2 is set to arrive in the UK on Friday but once again analysts are warning that we could see iPad 2 shortages in the wake of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
iSuppli has been more specific in its latest research note. It suggests the hardened glass overlay used for the iPad 2 is probably sourced from a Japanese company which has acknowledged earthquake damage to one of its factories while another has been affected by fire.
iSuppli claims that the iPad 2 uses one of two kinds of hardened galss: Corning’s Gorilla Glass or Asahi Glass Company’s Dragontrail Glass. Asahi Glass confirmed last week that one of its glass-producing factories has been partially damaged by the earthquake and will not restart production for a month. A second facility was also pushed offline after a fire at a nearby oil refinery.
Previous speculation suggested that there could be iPad 2 shortages because of constrained supplies of the electronic compass but it has now been confirmed that AKM Semiconductor, which makes the component, was not seriously affected by the disaster. Other issues do remain though with the iPad 2 likely to be affected by a coming shortage in flash memory in the wake of disruption to Japanese factories.
iSuppli predicts that there is a window of about two weeks to prevent major disruption to supplies of tech like the iPad 2 as downstream producers are likely to have enough components stockpiled to keep the supply chain running. The big conclusion for Apple fans? If you want an iPad 2, best snap one up sharpish.
