Apple may have sold 700,000 iPad units on launch day

Although Apple is yet to offer up any figures about iPad sales on launch day, analysts have been offering their own predictions.

Initially, numbers in the region of 300,000 were given, but after the day one rush those figures are now being revised, with some predicting a staggering 700,000 units sold in the first 24 hours.

When Apple started taking pre-orders on the 12th March 2010, within two hours 51,000 units had been purchased, according to the AAPL Sanity Board at Investor Village.

Using their own sales figures, users on the site predicted that by the end of the day over 120,000 pre-orders had been taken.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune Brainstorm Tech estimated that over the following weekend, around 1,000 units were sold every hour, bumping the pre-order figure up to around 170,000 sold over the first three days.

Daniel Tello then predicted that Apple sold another 45,000 each week leading up to the launch, weighing the grand total in at around 305,000 pre-orders.

However, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who initially predicted Apple would sell in the region of 200k-300k units within the first weekend after launch, has now revised his figures stating that his first estimate "may prove to be conservative".

In fact, Munster now believes the iPad may have sold between 600,000 and 700,000 units on the first day alone.

This is a stark comparison to the iPhone, which sold 270,000 at launch.

Munster also says that his initial predictions of 900,000 sold in June quarter with 2.7m sales in 2010 may be way off the mark, with demand for the device "stronger than [Apple] expected".

This is even with sales of the iPad limited to two units per person, and Apple turning down volume order for businesses.

Stores across America sold out of their allotted units quickly, with limited supply in certain areas a big problem.