Tim Cook said earlier this morning that Apple saw a “record weekend” for its new iPad, and AT&T has confirmed record iPad activations during the product’s launch day on Friday, March 16th. Although specific sales numbers have not been given by Apple, AT&T or Verizon, all signs point to another record-breaking product launch for Apple.
A new report says that Apple’s flagship 5th Avenue retail store in New York City was selling 18 iPads per minute during launch day, totaling a staggering 13,000 units sold during the first 12 hours of in-store availability.
According to The Verge:
Here’s what we’re hearing: within the first 12 hours of the iPad’s launch — between 8AM and 8PM local time — the store sold over 13,000 new iPads, an average of about 18 per minute. Daily store revenue, which typically falls between $700,000 to $1 million this quarter, was up to $11.5 million on launch day. On the supply side, the Fifth Avenue store had more iPads out of any store in the US — not surprising at all given its landmark status, but also partly in reaction to last year’s iPad 2 launch, where they were selling out faster than employees could open boxes. While we don’t have a model-by-model breakdown, we do know the 4G models are selling at a better-than-expected rate, while Wi-Fi models have been more readily available.
After talking with our sources, The Verge’s numbers certainly make sense. Higher-profile stores sold about 1,000 iPads, and 5th Avenue has hundreds of employees and serves a considerably larger amount of customers than the average store. There was also a decent line outside the 5th Avenue location on launch day. 10 times the average sales number is feasible.
Demand for the new iPad is still high, but Apple seems to have figured out its supply chain this time around. For the most part, most iPad models are still available for walk-in customers at Apple stores around the country.
