A market research company seems to believe that Apple will release a new M5 iPad Pro series later this year. Although exciting in terms of new launches, information received states that apart from a significant upgrade of the chipset, the flagship tablet will be almost indistinguishable from the M4 model.
This lack of differentiation, coupled with some shipment numbers, suggests that newer models won't be the driver of growth in Apple's tablet business, but that it will be lower-priced tablets that will generate that momentum.
Compared with M4, the new M5 chipset may not bring substantial performance improvements when running in the new iPad Pro series. It is manufactured using TSMC's 3-nanometer "N3P" node and can only increase by 10% at most.
Tipster @Jukanlosreve discovered a research report from MeritzSecurities, which mentioned that early last year, LG and Samsung were expected to provide approximately 9 million OLED panel shipments for the M4 iPad Pro. Unfortunately, due to lack of demand, the revised number dropped to approximately 5.7 million units. In 2025, we should expect more or less the same receipts, as the OLED used in the M5 iPad Pro series is expected to ship only 5.5 million units.
MeritzSecurities predicts that the internal hardware of the M5 iPad Pro models will remain unchanged, including OLED technology, meaning Apple will stick with the tandem structure while offering the newer tablet an M5 upgrade. Unfortunately, a report claims that the chipset, which has begun mass production on TSMC's 3nm "N3P" technology, only offers a 10% improvement in efficiency and an even smaller 5% improvement in efficiency compared to the company's current-generation 3nm "N3E" node.
These details may explain why Apple may release the M5 iPad Pro series after releasing an updated version of the MacBook Pro, and the flagship tablet may be delayed until 2026. The Cupertino company earlier launched the M4 iPad Pro series to showcase the new sleek design, tandem OLED technology and the huge performance and efficiency benefits of using M4, which is why these devices are available earlier than last year's MacBook Pro models.
Even so, the 11- and 13-inch M4 iPad Pro models have done little to drive sales momentum, as those products are priced on par with Macs, leaving Apple to rely on lower-priced iPad models to achieve the 15% growth the company witnessed during its first-quarter 2025 earnings call. This year, with the arrival of the newly released M3 iPad Air series and cheaper A16 Bionic-powered iPads, we may see another "déjà vu" moment with the M5 iPad Pro models.