Earlier Release Of iPad Pro To Answer Samsung’s Pro Tablets Forecast

Digitimes’Max Wang and Steve Shen say there’s strong consensus among Taiwan-based supply chain OEMs that Apple and Samsung Electronics will remain the top-two global tablet vendors in 2014, with expected shipments in the range of 80-90 million and 60-70 million units, respectively.

Wang and Shen also note that Samsung’s recent launch of two 12.2-inch “Pro” tablet models is expected to convince Apple to accelerate development of larger-size iPads, withmtheir Market sources indicating that Apple is likely to release a 12.9-inch model by the end of the third quarter 2014 at the earliest. The dominant commentariat projection has been that the Pad Pro (or whatever) would debut at what has become Apple’s customary third week in October hardware announcement event, so if the late Q3/14 prediction is correct, that would bring the iPad Pro unveiling ahead by about a month from what’s been previously anticipated.

Wang and Shen say The two vendors are also expected to continue bringing out new versions of their existing tablet models, and that Apple reportedly has asked its production partners and component suppliers to develop new models of its 7.9-inch iPad mini, and 9.7-inch iPad Air tablets, according to their ananymous sources.

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