According to news sources, Apple Inc. (AAPL) sold over 300,000 iPads during it’s debut on Friday. This number includes the people who pre-ordered their device online, shipments to stores like Best Buy, and retail sales from Apple. Regardless of how this number is calculated, we’ll be able to tell how much consumers really want this product by the end of the week.

Apple only sold 270,000 iPhones during its first 30 hours on the market, yet it moved over a million iPhone 3GS units during that handset’s opening weekend. Many reviews will be flooding the net this week about how much they love or hate it. However, many should concentrate on whether or not you need it. Do you really need the iPad when you already have an iPhone and an eReader?

I believe Apple will be happy if it sells many iPads, but will be even happier if they get more downloads per person. Selling an iPad will net them profit, but only that one time. Every iPad owner represents virtually limitless income, because as long as Apple keeps supplying apps, users will have the opportunity to continually purchase them. Therefore, Apple would have probably considered taking less profits from each device, since there is a potential exponential relationship between iPads sold and profits earned through downloads.

At the close of market today, Apple is $238.50 a share, up just over 1% for the day. Apple stock is up almost $20 a share since the pre-order was made available about three weeks ago. Moreover, the stock is up almost $50 a share since Steve Jobs announced the release of the iPad at the end of January.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.