Well-connected KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a note to investors – obtained by 9to5Mac – in which he put on paper his sales forecast for Apple’s latest product, the iPad Pro. He seems to be confident that, despite its not being available until November 11, Apple will be able to sell up to 2.6 million iPad Pro units in this holiday quarter. However, the sales curve will show a slight fall to between 2.1 and 2.3 million units in the first calendar quarter of 2016, he writes.
Kuo says the iPad Pro’s A9X chip will be supplied only by TSMC. His forecast comes shortly after the controversy around the A9 chip found in the iPhone 6s, which was double-sourced to both Samsung and TSMC.
Samsung, however, will remain in the iPad Pro supply chain as display manufacturer, helping Sharp (and Apple) to meet demand, as Sharp apparently has production issues.
As for the Apple Pencil (you can read a fine interview with Jony Ive about it here), you can see that it already takes 4–5 weeks to ship. After checking his sources, Kuo has found that Apple has supply issues, as production “isn’t going smoothly”, which will apparently affect iPad Pro sales.
