It’s official. With the consumer electronics manufacturing world watching with baited breath, Apple confirmed its marketing savvy with the smash-hit launch of its iPad tablet. Or did it?
Apple confirmed it sold 300,000 iPads in the U.S. as of midnight on Saturday, April 3. Apple included pre-orders, deliveries to channel partners, and sales at Apple retail stores. Apple also announced that iPad users downloaded more than one million apps from Apple’s App Store and more than 250,000 e-books from its iBookstore during the first day.
“It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world — it’s going to be a game changer,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad.”
Did Apple Sell Enough?
Although the first-day sales figure was lower than some analysts predicted — Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster upped his first-day sales estimates to between 600,000 and 700,000 — the lines were seemingly long enough in front of Apple stores across the country as consumers waited to get their hands on one of the devices.
“I think some people are trying to figure out what it’s going to be,” said Mike Disabato, a senior analyst with the Burton Group, a division of Gartner. “There has been so much hype for and against the iPad. There were a heck of a lot of people in the Apple Stores when I drove by, and if that many people were sustained all day, they should have sold a lot more.”
Still, many analysts are bullish on long-term sales for the device. Muster raised his 2010 prediction from 2.8 million iPads to 5.5 million. Forrester Research is predicting first-year sales of three million. And iSuppli is betting the iPad’s design, applications and multi-touch capability will drive a…