According to Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, the devastating earthquake and tsunami disaster that hit Japan in March has not had a “material impact on the supply or availability of components for Apple’s iPad 2 or other products last quarter.” This is good news for people all around the world that want to purchase these high-tech products because he also explained that they do not expect the situation to affect Apple in the near future either.
Even though the components that are used for the Apple products may not be as affected as people presumed shortly after the disaster in Japan, it does still show an economic impact in sales that were going strong in Japan before the disaster. To adjust the loss in sales from this, Apple lowered their expectations by $200 million for the quarter.
As explained in Apple Insider, “Cook revealed that the disaster did not have a major impact on component supplies or pricing in the second quarter of fiscal 2011. He also said that Apple does not anticipate the ongoing situation to have a major impact in the third quarter, either. However, the COO also cautioned that the situation in Japan remains volatile, with aftershocks and potential power outages. Cook revealed that Apple’s employees have been working ‘around the clock on contingency plans,’ to ensure that the company will be able to secure components if deals were to fall through in Japan. But he also said he would prefer to stick with Apple’s long-term partners in Japan if possible — something he said he expects will take place in most cases.”
With the soaring popularity of the iPad 2, the company has been watched closely to determine if the component supply is large enough to meet the consumer’s growing demands for such devices. Cook admitted that the demand for the iPad 2 is “staggering” and is also “heavily backlogged.”
In the second fiscal quarter of 2011, Apple was able to sell 4.69 million iPads. This is a bit below the projected 6 million that Wall Street analysts expected, but it is still a huge number. The demand for iPads has also been growing. Apple will launch the iPad 2 in 13 more countries starting next week. It is unknown as of right now which countries will be launching the iPad next week, but it is likely to include Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore.
Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Supplies Relatively Unaffected By Disaster In Japan was created by and is property of American Consumer News.
