Just a little while ago we brought you news that both AT&T and Apple had announced “record” sales of the new iPad, which hit stores last Friday. Neither company, however, had gotten into specifics about how many iPads had been sold in the new tablet’s opening weekend, leaving us to speculate about just what “record” meant.

Now Apple has gone into specifics. The company announced today that they had sold 3 million iPads in the first four days of availability. Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing called this “the strongest iPad launch yet.” The new iPad became available in both in Apple Stores and the stores of Apple’s retail partners in nine countries around the world. It was the largest single-day launch in Apple’s history.

Apple announced the new iPad at a special media event on March 7th. Preorders of the tablet sold out in the first two days, and online orders are currently taking 2-3 weeks to ship. Apple’s retail stores had a sizable supply of the tablets in stock.

The new iPad’s launch contrasted with last year’s iPad 2 launch. The iPad 2 suffered from shortages, and took nearly a month to sell its first million units.