Folks may still be skeptical about tablet computing devices, but Apple nonetheless seems to have a success in it’s hands with the iPad: the company has just announced it had sold over 2 million iPads, and it’s hit that sales milestone less than 60 days after the devices were first launched to consumers in the United States.
The announcement comes on the same weekend Apple first began offering the iPad for sale outside the United States; sales started this weekend in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Apple plans to launch the iPad in nine additional countries in July 2010, with launches in additional countries coming later in the year.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs also acknowledged obliquely the company is struggling to meet demand for the devices. “Customers around the world are experiencing the magic of iPad, and seem to be loving it as much as we do. We appreciate their patience, and are working hard to build enough iPads for everyone.”
Apple announced that it had sold its first million iPads at the beginning of May, just 28 days after the product’s initial launch. At that point, the iPad was only available in the United States.
Although Apple’s financial results for the quarter won’t be put into the books for a while yet, industry analysts are already speculating iPad sales could add $1.5 billion or more to Apple’s bottom line for the quarter.