Hong Kong/Sydney Apple's new iPad proved to be another hot-seller yesterday, with hundreds queuing at stores across Asia to be the first to get their hands on the 4G-ready tablet computer as the company's share price hit $600 (Dh2,203) for the first time.
As consumers lined up around city streets to buy the iPad, one firm that took the new device apart said Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Samsung Electronics had all held onto their prized roles as key parts suppliers.
David Tarasenko, a 34-year-old construction manager who was the first to pick up the iPad from a Telstra store at midnight in Sydney, said ever since Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook revealed the tablet's third iteration, he couldn't wait to get one.
The new iPad is a progressive development of Apple's tablet, with a more powerful CPU and screen and better camera. It was not marketed as a revolutionary product like earlier versions, yet Apple devotees still snapped up the latest version.
"The iPad is already a pretty mature product and it's hard to revolutionise it any further," said Dickie Chang, an analyst with research firm IDC based in Hong Kong.
"It's slightly heavier than its predecessors and I think Asian consumers will be more concerned about that," he said.
"Going ahead, with Tim Cook at the helm now, I think he may have to come up with another product to mark his stamp."
Excitement
Crowds were down on previous Apple launches, but there was still excitement as stores opened.
"I've come from Russia to buy an iPad for my three-year-old son David," Oleg Konovalov, a newspaper salesman, said in Tokyo. The buzz helped propel Apple shares to record highs in US trade on Thursday, with Apple stock touching a high of $600.01 before easing back. It peaked half an hour after the first iPad went on sale in Australia, extending the market worth of the world's most valuable company to almost $560 billion.
Only a month earlier, the stock price had crossed $500 for the first time. The stock has jumped 45 per cent this year.
At Thursday's closing price of $585.56, the stock is far more expensive than the $499 starting price for a Wi-Fi iPad.
Apple may sell 65.6 million iPads, according to an estimate by Canaccord Genuity analysts who also raised their target price on Apple stock to $710 from $665. So far, the company has sold 55 million iPads since it was launched in 2010.
Tablet sales are expected to increase to 326 million by 2015 with Apple largely dominating the market, according to research firm Gartner. The iPad competes with Samsung Electronic's Galaxy and Motorola's Xyboard, among others.
The third-generation iPad is seen more as a collection of incremental improvements, such as a high-definition "retina" display and a better camera, rather than a major innovation.
Online reviews of the new iPad overwhelimngly praised Apple for its improved screen resolution.
The inner workings of the iPad are similar to previous models, based on a "teardown" by a tinkerer from California gadget-repair firm iFixit, who queued up in Australia to get one of the new tablets and quickly took it apart for a web blog.
IFixit cofounder Luke Soules' pre-dawn teardown at a Melbourne computer shop found Apple suppliers Qualcomm, Broadcom and Samsung had maintained their key roles in the newest iPad.
The iPad includes a Qualcomm LTE cellphone chip and a Qualcomm wireless modem for 3G and 4G. Broadcom supplies a semiconductor handling wireless tasks like WiFi and Bluetooth, according to iFixit.
The iPad's new A5X application processor, with improved graphics horsepower, is based on energy-efficient technology licensed from Britain's ARM Holding and is manufactured by Qualcomm, as in past Apple devices.
Supplying parts for Apple's iPhones and iPads, the industry's gold standards, is considered a coup for chipmakers and other manufacturers. Analysts recommend caution in drawing conclusions from the teardowns.
Diehards queue up overnight
The new iPad went on sale yesterday in ten countries, including the US, Canada, Singapore and Britain, with diehards lining up overnight in front of Apple stores.
"After this, well, I'll first of all open it up and check it's as beautiful as I thought. Then I'll get some sleep," said Shintaro Aizawa, 16, who waited 15 hours outside a Tokyo store.
Just across the border from Hong Kong in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, people keen to get their hands on the new iPad had to wait for the tablet to be smuggled into mainland China.
"We don't have iPad 3s yet, but some will arrive later in the day when the students deliver them to us. We'll have more supplies over this weekend," said a store operator in Shenzhen.
