Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Thursday:
Labor Woes: Taiwan’s DigiTimes reported Thursday that Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) manufacturing partner Foxconn is running short on the necessary goods to produce both the iPad and the iPhone. The manufacturer’s Chengdu plant in China isn’t just running short of materials, however, but the staff to make them. While Apple has reportedly placed orders for as many as 3 million iPads a month, it’s unlikely that Foxconn will be able to meet those numbers. Apple sold nearly 4.7 million iPads during the first quarter of 2011, missing analyst expectations due to supply issues caused by the March earthquake in Japan. If Foxconn’s supply and workforce problems turn out to be true, Apple will likely continue to miss sales targets for the tablet — or those targets need to be re-adjusted.
iPad Stops Hitting PC: Apple Insider has found via a study of iPad owners from research firm NPD that while the PC market continues to underperform, the iPad’s impact on the market segment has eased. Even though 14% of consumers purchased an iPad rather than a PC during the tablet’s first six months on store shelves, just 12% did the same during the holiday quarter of 2010. While this is promising news for companies like Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) that have watched traditional PC sales decrease in recent months, it should be noted that the NPD’s report doesn’t cover the first quarter of 2011, a period when Apple released the hugely popular iPad 2. It’s very possible that the iPad’s impact on the PC market reached those previous highs.
Information, Please: One of the chief arguments between Apple and magazine publishers looking to produce tablet editions of their publications for the iPad has been Apple’s unwillingness to share customer information with those publishers. It was the central conflict in Apple’s long-running conflict with Time Warner’s (NYSE:TWX) Time Inc. imprint. Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici is reporting that the reason Conde Nast, Hearst, and other publishers are now happily bringing their wares to iTunes is that Apple has eased its policy on sharing customer information with those publishers. Apple now allows readers to willingly share information with publishers by clicking an icon during the transaction. Since roughly 50% of customers agree to share their info, more publishers have been willing to come to the iPad.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.
