SEATTLE — Apple said Monday it delivered more than 300,000 iPads on its opening day, meeting expectations of some analysts while underscoring the challenges the company still faces marketing the device beyond early adopters.
The total seemed modest given the weeks of hype about the revolutionary nature of Apple’s new touch-screen tablet device.
Furthermore, the figures included pre-orders that were picked up or delivered Saturday and iPads sent to retail stores such as Best Buy but not necessarily purchased. Apple did not say how many went to such stores.
Assuming most of the 300,000 iPads ended up in the hands of consumers Saturday, though, the figure is in line with the number of iPhones that Apple sold when the smartphone made its debut in June 2007. Apple didn’t publicize first-day sales at the time, but later earnings reports indicated the company sold about 270,000 iPhones during the first two days the gadget was available.
Apple sold 1.1 million more iPhones over the next three months.
The volume has only increased as Apple has released new versions of the phone in a growing number of countries and software developers have created add-on programs, or “apps,” for tasks such as online banking and mapping bike rides using GPS. In the most recent quarter, Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones.
Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu wrote in a note to investors Monday that he believes a similar pattern will unfold for the iPad.
“When the iPhone was first launched, it was also somewhat of a disappointment,” Wu wrote. “But as the iPhone got more refined, with more apps, better software, not to mention better prices,” then sales picked up.
Wu had estimated the iPad’s sales at 250,000 to 300,000 for the weekend. In the research note, the analyst wrote that manufacturers said Apple was telling them to get ready to ship 10 million iPads in the first 12 months, twice as many as previously expected.
The same hoopla that drew eager shoppers to long lines outside of Apple stores swept away a few analysts too. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster published a research note early Monday boosting his initial forecast for first-day sales to 600,000 to 700,000 — only to quickly follow with a second note admitting he had jumped the gun.
“We were overly optimistic,” he wrote.
Munster’s original forecast was for 200,000 to 300,000 iPads to be sold Saturday.
However, Munster wrote that he still expects Apple to sell 1.3 million iPads in the current quarter.
