Apple causing touch panel shortage for competitors

Apple’s dominant place in the smartphone and tablet market is causing a component famine crisis for its rivals.

According to Digitimes, the Cupertino based firm is taking nearly 60 percent of the global touch panel capacity, leaving its competitors to fight for the scraps left over.

The report claims Apple intend to ship an eye-watering 40million iPads over the course of this year, and have managed to get first dibs on supply from screen manufacturing giants Wintek and TPK in order to fulfil the target.

This in turn takes the supplies away from companies such as RIM, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard, and is set to have a detrimental effect on their shipment volumes.

Samsung Electronics, Acer and HP have all recently turned to smaller screen manufacturers to avoid shortages hampering their new product plans.