Apple may have sold 500,000 iPad 2 tablets

Apple may have sold as many as 500,000 iPad 2 computers after retail outlets ran out of the tablet-style device on its debut weekend, said Piper Jaffray Cos analyst Gene Munster.

Stores run by Apple, Target and Best Buy contacted by Munster’s team had sold out of the device, he said in a research note yesterday. Online orders via Apple’s website are taking up to a month for delivery, up from less than a week when sales began.

Early estimates suggest demand for iPads remains buoyant even as competitors such as Motorola Mobility Holdings enter the tablet market. Apple sold more than 300,000 units of the first iPad in the 24 hours after its April debut.

“IPads are sold out across virtually all channels,” Munster said in the research note. “We were unable to find any availability.”

Munster said Apple will probably surpass his early prediction that 5.5 million iPads would be sold this quarter, which ends this month. Munster, based in Minneapolis, said that 70 per cent of the customers surveyed by his team were first-time iPad buyers, signaling Apple is expanding its user base.

Apple may have sold three times as many iPad 2s in the debut as the first iPad, according to Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research. All of the handful of Best Buy stores surveyed by Global Equities sold out of the iPad in four minutes.

Apple rose $2.89 to $354.88 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading at 9.40 am New York time. Before today, the shares had risen 9.1 per cent this year.

The new model, which comes in white and black, is lighter, thinner, includes a more powerful processor and has front and rear cameras. It ranges in price from $499 for a base model to $829 for the top-of-the-line version.