The supply of Apple's iPad 2 finally catches up with demand
A week after shipping times were cut to 3-5 business days, they shrank again to 1-3 — Apple's (AAPL) has been having trouble keeping up with demand for the iPad 2 from the day the product launched in early March.
Context & Ripple Effects
The pre-launch hope of near-immediate iPad 2 availability never materialized — from the early March 2011 debut onward, Apple ran weeks-long backlogs, echoing the sell-outs that hit the first iPad at many stores in May 2010. A week ago the wait had already fallen to 3-5 business days per AppleInsider's tracking of improving availability.
Shipping times shrinking again to 1-3 days signals the production ramp has finally caught up, closing a four-month gap between what Apple could build and what customers wanted.
First-order effects
- Buyers can now get an iPad 2 within days instead of waiting out multi-week backlogs, and Apple enters its July earnings report able to claim it is shipping every unit demanded rather than rationing supply.
Second-order effects
- Rival tablet makers lose the scarcity window they were selling into since March — with iPads on shelves and doorsteps, their pitch shifts from 'available now' back to competing on merit.
- Apple can redirect freed assembly and component capacity toward building inventory for the fall refresh cycle rather than clearing backlog.
Third-order effects
- If every iPad generation repeats this launch-scarcity-to-ramp pattern — as the 2010 sell-outs foreshadowed — launch-week shortages become less a failure than a predictable feature of Apple's deliberately staged production ramps.
The trend: Consumer tablet launches are settling into a repeatable cycle of demand outrunning constrained supply for months before manufacturing ramps close the gap.