Apple sells 1 million iPads in first month

SAN FRANCISCOApple Inc.
said Monday that sales of the iPad have topped 1 million units less
than one month after the touch-screen tablet device first went on sale.

The company released the WiFi version of the iPad on April 3, while devices that connect to 3G wireless networks went on sale Friday. Sales have already outstripped initial Wall Street
estimates, and the company cannot fully meet all the demand. The
company plans to launch the device in international markets later this
month.

Most analysts had been expecting Apple to sell
between 1 million and 2 million iPad units for the quarter ending in
June. “One million iPads in 28 days — that’s less than half of the 74
days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement.

Jobs said demand continues to outpace supply and that the company “is working hard” to try to produce iPads at a faster rate.

Apple also said iPad users have downloaded more than 12 million applications from the company’s App Store,
as well as more than 1.5 million electronic books. The company is
pitching the iPad as an alternative to the popular Kindle e-reader
device from Amazon.com, though the latter has never disclosed sales figures for its device.

Other PC makers are readying tablet devices of their own, including Dell and Lenovo.

Hewlett-Packard had a device called the Slate that it showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, but news reports last week said Hewlett-Packard was calling off at least one version of the device that was to be based on the Windows Mobile platform.

The company recently announced plans to acquire Palm Inc., which has a mobile platform called webOS that analysts believe will be put to use in future tablet devices.

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