When the iPad launched, many people - including me - thought it was too expensive, and too much a luxury item in these straitened times.

For example, taking a more professional opinion, back in June 2010, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall expected iPad to sell 10 million units in calendar 2010. And that was his fourth attempt at a prediction, up from an initial estimate of 2.2 million.

How wrong we all were.

When releasing its quarterly financial figures, Apple has revealed it's sold a massive 14.8 million of the $500+ devices during the nine months since the launch.

Quarter by quarter

Apple sold 7.33 million units in October to December, 4.19 million iPads from July to September, and 3.3 million in the three months following its April 3 launch.

Nine months after launch, the hardware makes up 17 percent of Apple's total revenue.

Good news then for developers of iPad games; something that the likes of Hemisphere [Osmos] and 2D Boy [World of Goo] have proved to be very different to the run-of-the-mill iPhone gaming audience.

The device is also said to be doing very well in the business space with 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies said to deploying the iPad - something that's potentially bad news for RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. 

It's also now available in 46 countries.

[source: Apple]