Has Apple sold 8 million iPads?
When the number was first bandied about in the press, it seemed like it had to be overblown, but a little thought showed that perhaps Apple has indeed sold as many as 8 million iPads in six or so months.
After all, the company did sell 3 million of their tablet computers in the first 80 days of its existence. And well after that first three months, the iPad stayed in short supply, generally with shipping delays of three weeks or so. During the period between three and four months after the U.S. launch, Apple finally introduced the iPad into non-U.S. markets, and now it has gone as far as China. When you start to look at the way things have gone, 8 million sold does not seem like an outlandish number, or at least not outlandish when you stop to think about how hot the iPad has really been since April.
There are a number of analysts that place iPad sales to date at between 6 and 8 million units, according to a Fortune story. One in particular, Bernstein Research retail analyst Colin McGranahan, is at the top end of those numbers and was not at all squeamish about defending his numbers. These numbers assume sales of between 3.8 and 6 million sales in the quarter that just ended, and which will not be reported for a couple of weeks. McGranahan thinks that the sales number for last quarter were over 4.5 million, lower than many of his fellow analysts. He thinks that the iPad’s “fastest ever” start has never slowed down.
The introduction of other tablets does not yet seem to be dimming the iPad star. There are more tablets out there than you could shake a stick at, and none of them are bragging about their numbers. There are a couple of big players about to enter the market, like HP and RIM, so maybe one of them will take hold, but if they do they will be the first. Eventually, the sheer numbers of too-small iPad clones running Android will start to make a dent, but it is very unlikely that any one of them will sell extremely well or make their owners very happy. So far, it is iPad all the way.
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