Analysts: Apple Tablet May Launch In March Or April

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on December 09

Oppenheimer analyst Yair Renner is out with a research note this morning saying he thinks that Apple will begin the manufacturing ramp on the forthcoming tablet product in February, which implies, he says, a product release in late March or early April.

A manufacturing ramp in February would give Apple time to build up about five to six weeks worth of inventory before launch, he says.

Additionally, Renner writes that the thinks the device’s display will be a 10.1-inches and based on LCD technology, not OLED technology as previously thought.

Finally, he says Apple has been reaching out to book publishers with a “very attractive proposal for distributing their books.” The revenue split on the table is said to 30% for Apple, 70% for the publisher, and Apple won’t request exclusivity. That’s better, from the publisher’s point of view, than the split Renner thinks Amazon gives publishers on the Kindle, 50-50 in most cases, and 30-70 if its a Kindle exclusive.

Amazon, Renner says, has “disgruntled the publishing industry,” with the Kindle, by demanding exclusivity, not allowing advertising, and demanding too much of a revenue cut. That makes it vulnerable to the tablet.

Renner says he hasn’t updated his current model on Apple’s valuation to reflect the tablet, but he thinks it could easily contribute between 50 and 75 cents in incremental per-share earnings to Apple’s bottom line in the second half of the 2010 calendar year.

A second research note also out this morning corroborates Renner’s claims. Vijay Rakesh at ThinkEquity, also comments on the tablet, saying checks of Apple’s supply chain suggest it’s on track to ship a tablet with 64 gigabytes of flash memory capacity by March. He expects Apple to build between 1 million and 3 million units initially, and that it expects to build 8 million to 10 million during the 2010 calendar year.