More than 150,000 iPad Sold During Weekend According To Estimates

According to the data released by Investor Village's AAPL Sanity Board, Apple's iPad tablet device has received around 152,000 pre-orders during the first weekend of its release; the device is not currently on pre-order outside the US.

However, the rate at which people are pre-ordering the device has dropped significantly after the weekend.  The data revealed by the APPL Sanity Board was derived from tracking the pre-order IDs which were submitted by volunteers on the board. 

Initially, when the pre-order process began in the early hours of Friday, Apple saw 61,000 iPads being pre-ordered in the first 6 hours.

Interestingly an article over at CNNMoney.com, revealed that the device was being ordered at the rate of 25,000 units per hour initially, but slipped substantially to 1000 units per hour over the weekend.

The article was written by Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who interviewed Daniel Tello, the analyst who tracked the IDs for the APPL Sanity Blog.

Tello said in the interview that the exceptional number of pre-orders received by the iPad was the result of "pure overexcited fanboism." that had been built thanks to the hype generated in the weeks prior to the unveiling of the device.

Commenting on the issue, Tell told Mr, Philip that “My best guess, although very tentative given the early stage and few data we have so far, would be that they hit the 1 million unit milestone by the second week after it ships.”