Tablet Computer, Ipad Sales | featured news

Fortune reporter Philip Elmer-Dewitt compiles sell-side and independent analysts forecasts on Apple.  He has gathered 56 projections that have an average of 18.4 million iPads sold from the Street analysts and 17.7 million from the independent analysts.  The median for all of them is 18 million, which would be 53% growth from last year’s 11.8 million and down 21% from December’s quarter.

Apple Inc said its sales of Wi-Fi only iPads had doubled from its last launch as it sold 3 million in the three days since the introduction of the two newest versions of its popular tablet computer.

By the year’s end, worldwide media tablet sales will approach 120 million. That’s according to new research from Gartner (NYSE: IT), which reports that tablets will experience a 98% increase from 2011 sales to 60 million. Not surprisingly, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is credited as the producer of the dominant media tablet operating system, iOS, which is “projected to account for 61.4% of worldwide media tablet sales to end users in 2012,” Gartner wrote in its release. “Despite the arrival of Microsoft-based devices to this market, and the expected international rollout of the Kindle Fire, Apple will continue to be the market leader through the forecast period.”

The iPad, considered a side business for Apple when it was introduced in 2010, accounted for $9.15 billion in revenue in the holiday quarter, about 20 percent of Apple’s total revenue.

Company adds that developers have now created more than 11000 apps specifically for the hot-selling new tablet.

Apple announced on Monday that it has sold more than two million iPads since the release on April 3.

Apple Inc on Monday said it sold one million iPads in its first 28 days, and users of the tablet computer have already downloaded 12 million apps and 1.5 million digital books.

Wall Street analysts on Monday joined the masses in terming Apple Inc's iPad launch as "rock-solid," with some pegging sales of the tablet computer at about 5 million units in the first 12 months.

Cupertino, Calif.-based gadget maker's tablet computer selling fast. Apple sold between 600,000 and 700,000 iPads during the tablet computer's first day of sales Saturday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote in a note to investors Saturday. That's up from the range of between 200,000 to 300,000 units Munster had predicted earlier. Munster cited "longer than expected lines" and good iPad availability ...