Apple shifts 120,000 iPads on first day on sale

Apple racked up an estimated 120,000 pre-orders for the iPad as the tablet went on sale through the Apple Store in the US on Friday.

Market analyst Investor Village also claims that more than two thirds of sales were for the Wi-Fi-only iPad, with just 31 per cent of consumers opting to pay the $130 price premium for the AT&T-powered 3G version. That aside, sales were reportedly fairly evenly split between the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB iPad.

The sales estimate is very much unofficial, and is based on the order numbers given out to customers. The team at Investor Village's AAPL Sanity board sampled 99 orders over 19.5 hours, arriving at a total of 124,596 orders placed for Apple products on Friday.

It then subtracted 16,500 the average number of orders placed on a typical day then multiplied by 1.11, the average number of iPads ordered per customer based on the 99 orders it tracked, to reach the final tally of 119,987.

The numbers generally exceed most forecasts of consumer demand for the iPad, with revenue from opening day pre-orders for the Apple tablet estimated at around $75 million.

However, while most analysts have the overall sales prediction of 120,000 is likely to prove fairly accurate, the split between Wi-Fi and 3G models is more speculative, based solely on the 99 orders actually tracked.

The preference for the Wi-Fi-only version is hardly surprising, though, considering not only the price difference but also the fact that the less expensive iPad will be delivered on 3 April, with the 3G version only being shipped at the end of April.

There has already been speculation that the higher-than-expected pre-orders could leave Apple with a problem matching demand with physical stocks in time for the early April shipping date.