(Photo Credit: Dan Herron)
Apple announced on Monday that it marked the 2 millionth iPad sale this week and now Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, predicts that Apple will sell as many as 6.2 million devices in 2010 citing strong international demand for the device.
Munster issued a research note to investors on Tuesday, where he updated his 2010 sales prediction from 4.3 million units to 6.2 million units. He added that the additional sales would add $0.25 to the company’s 2010 GAAP earnings per share estimates. Apple’s stock is now sitting near $264.00.
“We conducted 25 checks at Apple stores in the U.K., Germany, France, Japan and Australia, and found that supply exists after the first weekend of sales, but availability is very limited,” he wrote.
The analyst said that investor should be cautioned that sales could be limited by the availability of the device. Munster added that he believes the new international sales over the weekend likely added at least 100,000 new units to the current sales total.
Piper Jaffray did checks at 25 international retailers over the weekend and found that 36% of the stores had entirely sold out of iPad units. Similar checks in U.S. stores on May 21st found that 74% of stores were sold out.
“In other words, supply at international stores is limited and declining, similar to trends we saw at U.S. Apple stores,” Munster wrote.
[...] Obviously, the debut of the iPad had a lot to do with this. On top of the 3.47 million Macs, 8.4 million iPhones, and 9.41 million iPods sold during the quarter, iPad sales were at an impressive 3.27 million by the end of July. Analysts predict they may sell as many as 6.2 million iPads by the end of the year. [...]