Apple Blows Through ‘Mother of All iPad Backlogs’

It’s taken quite a few months, but Apple seems to have finally cleared up “the mother of all iPad backlogs” and brought supply for the device roughly into balance with demand.

As first noted by Apple 2.0, shipping estimates for the device have dropped to one to three business days, after a long stretch at one to two weeks.

The improvement in ship time comes a little over four months after the U.S. debut of the device and a crush of heavy demand that initially forced Apple to push deliveries out four to five weeks. And it’s a clear indication that iPad production is no longer running tight due to component shortages and a deadly explosion at a Foxconn plant in Chengdu, China, where some of the devices were produced.

That bodes well for Apple’s financials going forward, since the company has been selling iPads pretty much as fast as it can make them. As COO Tim Cook said during Apple’s Q2 earnings call, “We sold every iPad 2 we made during the quarter … I wish we could have produced more iPad 2s because there were certainly a lot of people waiting for them.”