Wall Street sees 13.5 million Apple iPads sold in December quarter

Recently, we showed you a list compiled by Fortune Magazine of analysts' expectations for Apple iPhone sales in the December quarter. Now, Fortune has gone back to the analysts to see what kind of sales they expect Apple to report on January 24th for the Apple iPad. Both Wall Street and independent analysts expect the Cupertino based firm to announce a record number of iPads that were shipped during the three month period. The Wall Street consensus is that 13.5 million tablets were sold in the quarter while independent analysts show a consensus about 10% higher at 14.8 million. The previous record for the number of Apple iPads shipped in a quarter in the 11.2 million units that were moved in the period ending September 2011.

Last quarter's top ranked analyst for Apple iPad sales was William Power at Baird whose estimate is 14 million iPads sold in the December period. The prior period's top analyst, Nicolae Mihalache from Traderhood expects Apple to report that 16.4 million tablets were purchased during Apple's 1st quarter.

The consensus for both Wall Street and independent analysts is 14 million units which would represent a 90% increase in sales year-over-year. Some analysts predict that the bargain priced Amazon Kindle Fire ate into Apple iPad sales during the holiday quarter with Morgan Keegan calculating that Apple lost 2 million sales to the Kindle Fire at most, during the quarter. As far as an estimate for the year is concerned, Canaccord Genuity's Michael Walkley is looking for 55 million copies of the Apple iPad to be sold. That includes sales of the new Apple iPad 3 which is expected to be launched in March.

source: Fortune via AppleInsider