At this point, everyone knows that the iPad 2 was a big sales success. The task that remains is quantifying its success, and a new report may do just that. Anonymous sources hint Apple sold somewhere between 2.4 million and 2.6 million iPad 2s in March.
Yenting Chen and Steve Shen wrote earlier this morning after speaking with “sources at upstream touch panel suppliers,” “Sales of iPad 2 are running at a rate faster than its predecessor, and Apple took delivery of 2.4-2.6 million units in March . . .”
Of course, under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t mean an equal number of devices made it into consumers’ hands, but since stores carrying the iPad 2 have been sold out on a near-permanent basis since its debut, a straight delivery-to-sales conversion seems reasonable.
Then Chen and Shen continued with respect to the future, “Based on a conservative estimate, Apple is likely to take delivery of 4-4.3 million units a month, or a total of over 12 million units, of iPad 2 tablets in the second quarter, said the sources.”
That should earn the company a tidy sum of money, and investors seem to have picked up on the fact. Apple’s stock has already risen 0.67 percent so far this morning, while the Dow and Nasdaq are a little behind at 0.43 percent and 0.66 percent, respectively.
The one thing everyone will have to watch out for is whether the introduction of different Android tablets will have a negative impact on sales of the iPad 2.
