At this point, it’s fairly obvious that new Apple hardware is highly desirable. The third iteration and latest of the company’s popular iPad tablet device was already popular before it even officially went on sale this past Friday with pre-order stocks of the device selling out well in advance of the release date. Despite that, Apple is now saying that it has sold an astounding three million new iPads in the tablets first weekend on sale.
The record sales were announced by Apple in a press release, which quotes the company’s vice president of marketing Philip Schiller as saying: “The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold―the strongest iPad launch yet.”
Readers will recall that Steve Jobs correctly anticipated selling more than a million of the original iPads when the tablets were first unveiled, and did so in a mere 28 days. Its a testimony to how far public acceptance, and desire, for Apple’s tablets has come that it could sell three times that amount in a single weekend. With sales figures like these, it’s not surprising that Apple is feeling secure enough to start throwing cash around.
As impressive as that seems, it’s worth noting that the iPhone 4s sold 4 million units in its first weekend despite being derided by some critics as a disappointing update.
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