Six out of ten touch panels produced globally will end up in an Apple product, according to a media report.
Apple iPad
Citing industry sources, Digitimes said that Apple’s orders may affect Apple’s competitors and that display makers are unable to catch up with orders, especially from second-tier vendors. Digitimes said that about 40 million displays will go into iPads alone.
The publication noted that second-tier players are unable to acquire glass capacitive touch panels at this time, but there are some thin-film capacitive touch panel makers that can offer their products for tablets as well. If Digitimes is correct, than plain production capacity isn’t the main problem in touch panel manufacturing. Apparently, the yields are so low that overall availability is now affected. Companies such as Acer and HP are turning to smaller display manufacturers to secure their supply.
The demand for capacitive glass panels is unlikely to drop anytime soon, as the competition increases. Pandigital announced last week that it would be rebranding its Novel ebook reader as a tablet and replace the resistive touchscreen with a capacitive touch screen, while leaving the price unchanged at $149. There is a developing market of mainstream tablets and touch panel supply will be one of the key problems in the industry.
Only Apple appears to have solved this issue with a massive investment so far.
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