Apple could sell upward of 1 million new iPads on launch day, according to new Wall Street estimates.
In a Monday note to investors, Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster said his firm expects Apple to sell more than 1 million iPads on March 16, the day the updated tablet his stores, based on "previous Apple launches."
Munster pointed to ever-widening new iPad wait times. Over the weekend, ship dates for the new tablet slipped to March 19 and are now at 2-3 weeks. Apple told USA Today that pre-orders are "off the charts" and Apple has effectively sold out of its pre-order inventory.
"Clearly, this is a positive sign for demand of the new iPad, particularly because initial supply appeared to be strong for the first few days of pre-orders," Munster wrote. "Ultimately, this new information and our analysis of previous Apple product launches (below) suggests Apple will sell over 1m iPads on launch day."
When the first-generation iPad was launched in 2010, consumers snapped up 300,000 tablets in the first day. Apple did not reveal first-day sales for the iPad 2, but Apple acknowledged that it was hit with the "mother of all backlogs" for its second-gen tablet.
Munster pointed to the iPhone as a good indicator of how the new iPad will perform in the market.
"Since the launch of the first iPad, Apple has sold just over 55m iPads to date. And Apple launched the iPhone 4 in 5 countries after having sold over 50m iPhones through the [March 2010] quarter," Munster wrote. "The company took 600k pre-orders in one day (6/15/10) before systems were overloaded and pre-orders were halted. Then on 6/24 retail sales began and by 6/26 (with 3 days of sales) the company had sold 1.7m iPhone 4 units. Given the new iPad will be sold in 12 countries on 3/16, we are confident the company will sell over 1m on launch day."
Apple unveiled the new iPad last week during a press event in San Francisco. The updated tablet includes a Retina Display, 4G LTE connectivity, an improved camera, and the new A5X processor with a quad-core GPU, among other things.
For more, see PCMag's hands on with the new iPad and the slideshow below.