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 smartphone, touch panel makers believed.

In order to achieve its internal shipment goal of 40 million units of iPad in 2011, Apple has booked over 60% of the total touch panel capacity. Despite some supply concerns caused by the Japan earthquake, with room for price hikes, supply for touch panel and panel will be more smooth for Apple.