Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf on Tuesday raised his estimates for iPad shipments in the fiscal third quarter and full year. Wolf now believes increased demand will boost third-quarter shipments from 7.5 million to 9 million units, and he thinks Apple will ship a whopping 30 million iPad 2 tablets in fiscal 2011. “While competitors have rushed to launch competing tablets, they have made an imperceptible dent in the trajectory of iPad sales,” the analyst wrote in his note. “They have been unable to undercut the price of the iPad; and they’re fallen woefully short in matching its features, ease-of-use and the number of applications written for the device. Indeed, the only risk in our forecast is on the supply side, not the demand side.” Wolf also bumped his fiscal third-quarter Mac shipment projection from 3.75 million units to 4.25 million and 17 million units for the full year. Finally, he reduced his fiscal fourth-quarter iPhone estimates from 17.5 million units to 16 million, stating that Apple is likely to slow iPhone 4 shipments ahead of the iPhone 5′s launch in September. For the full year, Wolf sees iPhone shipments totaling 66 million units.
