According to industry reports, Apple received 120,000 orders for iPads on the first day, with over 50,000 ordered in the first two hours, and that’s without anyone ever getting their hands on one first.
Around 70 percent of orders are for the version of the iPad that comes with Wi-Fi but that could be because it’s available before the 3G version according to Fastcompany.com.
Obviously a good number of the initial orders were from Apple fans who wanted the iPad regardless of whether it lived up to expectations or not and were keen to get in there fast, particularly as there were talks of a shortage.
However sales were apparently slower on subsequent days, and had slowed down to around 1000 an hour over the weekend according to Fortune Brainstorm Tech Industry analyst Phillip Elmer De-Witt.
Then we have comments from Venezuelan blogger Daniel Tello, who regularly writes about Apple and has been since 1982, and who has been tracking the iPad sales, he says they are now averaging around 10,000 a day.
So is the iPad doing well or not?
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Apple could sell more iPads in the first three months than the number of iPhones sold in the first three months when they first came out. The WSJ quote a source “familiar with the matter”.
However, not everyone agrees with that including some of the online bookmakers who say the odds are against the iPad outdoing the iPhone.
The iPhone took 74 days to reach sales of 1 million whereas the iPad has around a 72 percent chance of taking longer than that according to YouWager.com.
“No matter what they put out on the market, there’s going to be large sales, but with this particular product, we don’t think it’s as practical as the iPhone,” said Brian Sanz from YouWager.
Incidentally, sales of 1 million within 74 days has become an industry benchmark for technology, something that the Motorola Droid was able to achieve. Not so with the Google Nexus One though, only 135,000 of those were sold in the same time period.
No matter what Apple releases, there’s going to be a demand for it, it’s just the way it is with Apple products, but at the moment, how the iPad will go is all just pure speculation.
It’s natural that sales of the iPad would be high initially, it has been rumoured about for a couple of years and eagerly anticipated for months, but until we get reports back from those who have actually used the iPad, we have no way of knowing how subsequent sales are likely to go and we’ll have to wait another month for that.
