Apple pushes UK iPad launch back to end of May

Paul Nesbitt

Citing unexpectedly large demand for the iPad since its launch in the US, Apple has again postponed the UK launch of the iPad. Apple's decision may also be down to production problems, according to a March report by Canaccord Adams analyst, Peter Misek.

'Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad,' Apple said in a statement.

'Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May.

'We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10. We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far,' the company said.

However, Misek's claims in March that an 'unspecified production problem' may have turned out to be right, given the inevitable teething problems that the production of any new kind of device inevitably face.