Ming-Chi Kuo: iPad mini not going away yet, foldable iPad will be expensive

The iPhone didn’t immediately kill the iPod, the MP3 player was cheaper, so it hung around for a few years. Now that Apple is gearing up to enter a new product category, foldables, rumors are swirling that it will kill off a product from an old one – The elect reported that Cupertino plans to discontinue the iPad mini after its foldable tablet comes to market.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo disagrees with this assessment and the reasoning is simple: the foldable iPad will have a “significantly higher price” than the mini. The iPad mini (2021) itself had to increase its price recently as the electronics market still hasn’t returned to normal.

The last iPad mini launched in 2021 and it probably won’t be the last

Kuo adds that there is a new iPad mini in development, which will bring a faster chipset. The 2021 model launched alongside the current Apple A15 Bionic. The new mini is expected to arrive in late 2023 or the first half of 2024 and at that time both the A16 and A17 chipsets will be available (which one will be used in the slate likely depends on yields and pricing).

Apple is planning to move iPad production to India as almost all of its factories are in China and have been affected by every wave of COVID (including this one).

As for the foldable, analysts believe Apple will start with an iPad-sized device because it would be easier to build (and less risky) than an iPhone-sized device. Current plans would target a 2024 launch. This could be huge as there are reports that Apple is working with Samsung and LG to develop foldable OLED displays as large as 20.25″.

Source | Via