Can Apple meet demand for the iPad

On Friday Apple made the iPad available for sale around the world and large crowds of fans turned out to spend their hard-earned cash on the devices.  So far the machines are selling extremely well but questions have been raised over Apple's ability to meet demand according to Reuters.

The iPad is now available in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Japan, Australia and Canada and will soon also be available in China.

But it's not Apple who are saying they'll have trouble meeting demand but an analyst at US-based firm Pacific Crest Securities.  Andy Hargreaves says...

"there's still going to be supply constraints, but I'm expecting them to sell every single thing they can ship."

Apparently this has everything to do with Apple's parts manufacturers being unable to meet the company's supply demands.

This wouldn't be the first time that a major technology company has had trouble meeting demand for a new product.  Nintendo famously faced the same problems when supplies of their Wii console fell short in the early months after its release, and at the crucial Christmas holiday period.

Apple have so far declined to comment, unsurprisingly wanting to avoid any hysteria or negative reporting on their success.  Apple are predicted to have shipped over 8 million iPads by the end of 2010.

Update. The iPad has been a phenomenal success for Apple, the third big success actually after the iPod and iPhone. It seems that everything the company creates these days in the consumer market turns to gold.

What may be problematic though is that Apple recently started to release minor updated versions of their devices in shorter succession, and it is not clear for how long the company will be able to do so profitably considering that Google with its Android operating system and Microsoft with Windows 8 and Windows Phone are also in the market.

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