3 million new iPad 3 tablets sold during opening weekend

It must have been a bit of a worry for Apple as they entered the run up to the new iPad 3 launch: how many people have a tablet or an iPad already, how many of those want to upgrade again (potentially year-on-year), and how many fence-sitters will bother to cough up the cash when it comes to time to make the jump?

Thankfully for Apple, it seems all those questions have been answered emphatically positively. In just the first weekend of the iPad 3 being on sale alone, the Cupertino company have managed to shift roughly 3 million new tablets.

That’s the equivalent of roughly 42,000 an hour or 694 iPads sold every minute, showing demand is as strong as ever for Apple’s “game-changer”.

“The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold – the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

And to think, it hasn’t even completed its global roll-out yet! While the UK, US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland and the US Virgin Islands got day-one access to the iPad 3 on March 16th, a further 25 countries will get the iPad this Friday.

In other words, expect those figures to continue to soar well into next week.

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