iSuppli: Apple to sell 120 million iPads by 2012

Many analysts were disappointed when Apple announced 4.2 million iPads sold in Q4 during the conference call yesterday. The consensus -- or hope -- among many on Wall Street was a 5m+ iPad quarter. But if iSuppli's report today is any indication, the Wall Street boys have nothing to worry about when it comes to future iPad sales. iSuppli states that due to increasing component availability (a lack of which, they suggest, is the only thing that kept Apple from selling more iPads), Apple is set to sell a total of 13.8 million units in 2010, up from 12.9 million units.

For 2011, iSuppli has raised total iPad sales estimates from 36.5 million to 43.7 million. It gets even better for the tablet maker in 2012, when iSuppli estimates Apple will sell 63.3 million units, up from their original estimate of 50.4 million. If iSuppli's estimates are correct, that means that by the end of 2012 -- just 2 years and 9 month since the iPad went on sale -- Apple will have sold 120 million of them. Now that's a lot of iPads.

The increased forecasts are due to greater than expected interest in the iPad from business and education institutions, and also due to the fact that the iPad is now available in more retail outlets like Amazon, Verizon stores, Target, and Walmart.
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