Apple sells 3.27 million iPads in three months

Denies creating product shortages.

Apple sold around a 3.27 million iPads in just three months, netting the computer-maker US$2.17 billion ($2.46 billion) in revenue.

That equated to about 13 percent of Apple's US$15.7 billion global revenues for the third quarter, according to chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer.

The phenomenal sales were made across just 10 countries, including Australia. Apple announced yesterday that the device would be sold in nine more countries by this Friday.

At the company's third quarter earnings announcement, Oppenheimer was quick to shut down questions over whether that the iPad may have cannibalised Macbook sales. He said Apple sold 3.47 million Macbooks last quarter, up 33 percent on the same period last year. The company also sold 8.4 million iPhones.

The iPad was high on the enterprise agenda, according to Oppenheimer, who claimed that half of Fortune 100 firms were testing it for deployment.

He also denied that Apple purposely created supply shortages for its products, arguing that he considered Apple's decision to make one million iPads per month a "bold" one.

"We do not purposely create a shortage," he said.

But in typical Apple fashion it has decided not to disclose the relative popularity of the 3G and Wi-Fi only versions of the tablet device.

Asked by an analyst to disclose the split Apple's chief operating officer Tim Cook declined. "All the models have been very popular," he said.

Oppenheimer had earlier declared that the average sales price was US$640.

Cook said the company was ramping up production capacity for the iPad "as quickly as we can" to meet supply shortages.

"I'm fairly confident we will be able to increase capacity," he said.