Apple iPad launch sales set to beat iPhone launch sales

Paul Nesbitt

Apple sold around 200,000 iPads in the first week after it started accepting pre-orders for its new device, which does not start shipping in the US until 3 April.

That’s according to Apple watchers, who made their calculations based on the order numbers allocated by Apple to customers pre-ordering the iPad, Apple’s much hyped slate computer. (The iPad is due to begin shipping in the UK late April.)

The 200,000 figure does not include iPads reserved by US customers for pick-up at Apple retail stores, and when estimates of these are added in, Apple has probably secured sales of 400,000 iPads in the first week it started taking orders.

The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, also predicted that Apple received pre-orders in “hundreds of thousands” of units, all from people who have never even touched or used an iPad.

The Wall Street Journal predicted that the iPad could even sell more quickly at launch than the iPhone did when it was launched in 2007. Then, Apple sold 1.2 million iPhones within weeks of launch.

If iPad sales do meet these predictions, it will be despite criticisms that it comes without a camera or USB connections, nor does it support multitasking or Abobe Flash. By contrast, HP’s forthcoming slate computer includes all of these features.

Meanwhile Apple is busy signing up content suppliers for the iPad. "It sinks or swims on the content,’ said Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf. ‘Apple wants to have as much in the way of applications on the device sooner rather than later.’

Condé Nast is planning an iPad version of Wired magazine, starting in June and it plans to follow suit with GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Glamour. The company already offers an iPhone app for GQ, and nearly 7,000 people downloaded the first issue at a price of $2.99, and 15,1000 downloaded the second issue. Still this is a small number compared to GQ’s print circulation of 900,000. Condé Nast expects the larger form factor of the iPad to prove more attractive as a reading platform than the iPhone.

The Associated Press has announced it will produce content for the iPad, and the NewYork Times is also preparing a version for the device.

And News Corporation chairman, Rupert Murdoch has already pledged to produce content for the iPad. :’All media is going to go into the iPad, whether it’s music, or books, or newspapers, or movies, you’ll be able to get on your iPad,’ he said.