Munster Projects 1 Million New iPad Sales on Day One

[Michael Essany]

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munser is never shy about making bold predictions regarding Apple products and heir corresponding sales. But in a world where the new iPhone can sell a million units in its first weekend of availability, why can't the new iPad do the same? Well, Munster thinks it can.

On Monday, just as extended shipping estimates prove the disparity between new iPad supply and crushing consumer demand - Munster went on the record to state that the new iPad may sell one million units on the first day of availability this Friday.

Apple only sold 300,000 units when the first iPad went on sale on April 3rd, 2010.

In conjuring his estimate, Munster looked at the market response to the iPhone 4 launch (and its preorder success) in 2010. "The company took 600 (thousand) pre-orders in one day (6/5/10) before systems were overloaded and pre-orders were halted," he said. "Then on 6/24 retail sales began and by 6/26 (with 3 days of sales) the company had sold 1.7 (million) iPhone 4 units. Given the new iPad will be sold in 12 countries on 3/16, we are confident the company will sell over 1 (million) on launch day."

Although most analysts believe Apple will sell approximately 10 million iPads for the March quarter, if Apple truly does sell one million of them on a single day, the 10 million projection might easily be blown out of the water.

"Even if iPad sales are less than 10 [million] in the March quarter, we see it as a win-win given investors will attribute the miss to a slowdown ahead of the new iPad and start to anticipate a strong rebound in the June-12 quarter," Munster told investors today.

Sources: Barron's, Apple Insider

[santacruzlocal]

Another Half Billion Cash to Apple !!! Why couldn't my parents buy stock?!?!?

[anekin007]

I'll wait for a jailbreak before getting one. I would love to see what the jailbreaking community can do with the new ipad.

[mori]

I'll wait for a jailbreak before getting one. I would love to see what the jailbreaking community can do with the new ipad.

riiight,, the JB for the ipad3 prob. won't come till summer, u will see.

[imperialto]

they said it cost Apple $310 to make the new ipad 16gb, so just to be conservative and say $150 profit ($499 sell price for 16gb, unsure of other models markup) x 1,000,000 = $150M profit on day 1? lol