iPad pre-orders may cool to "just" 30,000 per day
updated 09:50 am EDT, Mon March 15, 2010
Apple may pass 1m iPads sold 2 weeks post-launch
The rate of iPad pre-orders has cooled but could still lead to major sales even before the tablet ships, an estimate from the AAPL Sanity board suggests. Following an earlier calculation of 120,000 on day one, the board now believes that Apple landed 152,000 pre-orders over the weekend and is settling down to rates of 30,000 pre-orders on a typical weekday and 15,000 each day on weekends. Without a significant change, the rate while lower would still have Apple ship 510,000 iPads just for these customers.
Unofficial analyst Daniel Tello didn't expect Apple to take more than this amount in total before the April 3rd release, but he cautioned that the figures didn't include in-store reservations or launch day purchases. The 120,000 thought sold on Friday were the result of "pure overexcited fanboism," he said, but Apple could nonetheless see 1 million iPads sold by the second week of its availability.
The ratios of orders on the weekend remained largely unchanged and saw two thirds of buyers opt for Wi-Fi only instead of 3G, but slightly more (35 percent) chose a 64GB device over the entire three days.
Apple is unlikely to acknowledge the number of pre-orders, but the tally could lead to Apple having one of the most successful e-reader and tablet launches at the same time. If consistent, the iPad could sell more on launch day than Amazon did Kindles through all of 2008. Tablet PCs rarely have such official estimates, but as niche devices are also likely to be easily outsold by the lower-cost and more mainstream Apple product. [via Fortune]
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2008
Missing point
These numbers are only preorders - they do not include numbers reserved for pickup in the store, so the actual numbers are probably 50% higher - if the methodology can even be believed.
Not to mention, of course, that a large number of people won't buy them until they can actually hold one in their hands.
But even using the 30,000 per day number, that's close to a million per month - when some analysts projected as few as 1-1.5 million in the first year. Sounds like an overwhelming success by any standard.