By Chris Chang, posted Jul 15, 2011 at 12:15 PM, 354 views,

Rumor: Foxconn May Have Received Order for Amazon’s 10.1-inch Tablet

According to a new report, Foxconn has just received an order for producing Amazon’s rumored 10.1-inch tablet, with shipments to begin in 2012 at the earnest. Foxconn, as we know, is the manufacturer behind Amazon’s widely popular Kindle e-readers, so that’s not exactly big news.

A source familiar with the matter told the Taiwanese media that Foxconn has been producing the Kindle e-readers for Amazon, thus the manufacturer is able to receive order for Amazon’s upcoming 10.1-inch tablet. What’s more, Quanta Computer, another contract manufacturer from Asia, has already begun shipping a smaller 7-inch tablet codenamed Coyot to Amazon. This tablet is rumored to be powered by an Nvidia Tegra 2 and could launch as early as late August or September.

You may be surprised that Foxconn is building other tablets as well, while coping with the huge demand of the iPad 2. The manufacturer already make stuff for Sony, Microsoft, Dell, HP and pretty much every other consumer electronics provider on the planet. Other than building Amazon’s new 10.1-inch tablet, the manufacturer is “likely” to produce twelve million Kindle units for Amazon as well per year, comparing to 38-40 million iPads and 80-85 million iPhones per year.

At the meantime, Amazon is outsourcing the production of touch sensors to Wintek, with total purchasing volume to top 1.8-2 million units before the end of September. Amazon also purchases touch modules from J Touch and Young Fast Optoelectronics, with industry sources indicating that Amazon may also add touch panel makers TPK Holding and Cando to its supply chain later. While Foxconn may begin shipping the 10.1-inch tablets in 2012, there is a possibility that Amazon may launch the 10.1-inch model in advance in late 2011 to meet the year-end holiday demand in the US and Europe. Well, that’s good news for Amazon, bad news for Foxconn employees. And we think the Foxconn CEO Terry Gou must be all smiles now.

Source: Digitimes via HC360.com