SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Inc. announced Wednesday morning an event for March 2 in San Francisco, at which the company is expected to unveil an update to its popular iPad tablet device.

Apple did not announce details for new products at the event, though the invite contained a picture of the iPad.

Apple shares were last up about one percent in Wednesday trading.

News of the March 2 meeting was first reported Tuesday by AllThingsDigital.

Analysts expect the iPad 2 to be thinner than its predecessor and feature an improved display that will be powered by one of Qualcomm’s multimode chips and will run on both GSM and CDMA-based networks around the world.

In its last earnings calls, Apple said it had sold nearly 15 million iPads, since it went on sale last spring.

Apple will be facing increased competition with the launch of a number of tablets coming from numerous manufacturers, most of which are using the Honeycomb version of Google’s Android mobile operating system.

The company will kick off its annual shareholders’ meeting later Wednesday morning.

To read more, go to MarketWatch.com.