The disaster in Japan creates big problems for Apple, which now finds itself forced to replace some of its component suppliers in order to keep the production of iDevices active. Although some of Apple's partners have enough components to continue production for several weeks, Apple seems willing to ensure services touch panel suppliers in Taiwan. Apple would be willing to pay higher prices than the competition in order to conclude contracts with these suppliers from and all because certain factories in Japan have been closed and can no longer provide the necessary components for the production of iDevices.
In order to secure sufficient supply of touch panels used in the iPad and iPhone, Apple has talked with Taiwan-based makers, considering some room for them to hike quotes, according to these makers.
With Apple's capacity, It is a reasonable strategy from Apple to allow suppliers to hike quotes, and it will be a great help to the overall supply chain, even just for the short term, but will increase pressure to other vendors for tablet PCs and smartphones , touch panel makers believed.
Apple currently captures approximately 60% of the total touch panels produced in the world and the conclusion of new contracts with other suppliers could cause problems with the stocks of some of the company's competitors. LG, Motorola, HTC are smartphone and tablet manufacturers that may find that they can no longer manufacture their own products if Apple succeeds in concluding new contacts with some companies that until now supplied touch panels for other mobile terminal manufacturers .
Some might say that Apple will also increase the prices of iDevices, but I for one do not believe in such a theory considering that Apple has never made such a decision in the 4 years since it has been selling iDevices on the market.
