Apple sells 3 million new iPads since launch 3 days ago

Just three days after Apple launched the newest iPad in stores, the company has announced it has sold a whopping 3 million units.

Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said it was the strongest iPad release yet.

Analysts had anticipated that the third-generation iPad would be a strong seller -- Apple had described the pre-order experience as “off the charts”-- but the general consensus was that Apple would sell between 2 million and 3 million units by the end of March.

The iPad, which was available for pre-order starting March 9, was launched in 10 different markets Friday -- the U.S. (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland and Britain.

On Friday, the newest iPad is set to launch in 25 additional markets, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macao, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

“We can’t wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world Friday,” Schiller said in a statement released by Apple.

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