Ahead of its launch, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is building between 3 and 5 million Surface tablets to sell on the run-up to the holiday season. Clearly, it means business.
The newspaper cites component suppliers in Asia, who have stated that up to 5 million Surfaces could be churned out before Christmas. That’s a similar number to those placed for Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Google’s Nexus 7 in the past, say the suppliers. It is dwarfed, however, by the weigthy 10 million iPad Minis rumored to have been ordered by Apple.
https://gizmodo.com/wsj-apple-has-ordered-10-million-ipad-minis-from-chine-5949778
What makes comparisons between all these figures difficult, however, is price. While we have a reasonable idea of the kind of thing we can expect hardware-wise from both Microsoft and, to a lesser extent, Apple, there’s still debate over the cost of both the Surface and the iPad Mini, so it’s unfair to compare order numbers.
https://gizmodo.com/why-a-keyboard-not-a-processor-or-screen-or-anything-el-5919594
Perhaps more interesting is to compare those orders to current iPad sales figures. Apple managed to shift 17 million iPads in a single quarter earlier this year—so even if Microsoft can move the Surface speedily, it still has some catching up to do.
https://gizmodo.com/apple-sold-17-million-ipads-in-very-slightly-less-ridic-5928735
One thing is clear, though, if these figures are accurate: any pretense that Microsoft had of launching the Surface as a starting point for other manufacturers will be blown out of the water. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is on record as explaining that he was planning for the company to “sell a few million” tablets over the next 12 months—and those order figures tell a different story altogether. [WSJ]
