Apple Buys Up Touchscreens, Limiting Supply for Rivals

By Yahoo! News: "To keep up with soaring sales of Apple's hit iPad tablet, competitors will have to do more than just design and market a good rival. A report Friday said they may face problems building them.

It's no secret that Apple, which sold more than 14 million iPads last year and could see sales of more than 45 million in 2011, hedges its bets by ordering components it needs in massive quantities, ahead of demand.

Now Taiwan-based DigiTimes, citing sources from both component and computer manufacturers, says Apple has a grip on 60 percent of this year's expected output of capacitive touchscreens used in tablets. Unless capacity increases, that could put a strain on other companies' goals for the year.

'Touch panels are currently suffering the most serious shortage due to Apple holding control over the capacity of major touch-panel makers such as Wintek and TPK, and with U.S.-based RIM, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard also competing for related components, second-tier players are already out of the game,' sources told the industry journal. (Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry devices, is actually based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.)

News of Apple buying up LCD and OLED touchscreens preceded the release of the iPad at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, fueling rumors about the forthcoming tablet. Insiders say Apple could have sold even more iPads last year if it could have had more touchscreens and won't allow that to happen this year as it gets ready to release the second generation of the device.

Touchscreen shortages also reportedly affected the supply of iPhones when the fourth-generation model was released last June.

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