Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer: “The New iPad Is On Fire”

If you were one of the naysayers who thought that there wouldn’t be a very strong consumer appetite for the newest twist on the already very popular iPad, it may be time to think again. Apple’s top executives said today that just a few weeks after the new iPad’s formal launch, the response to the company’s latest iteration on the tablet has been incredibly strong — and it’s making an impact from a financial perspective.

Considering that Apple significantly dropped the starting price of the iPad 2 to $399 at the same time that it debuted the newest version of the iPad which ranges in price from $499 to $899, investors were obviously curious about how sales stacked up between the old and new devices. A full breakdown of the iPad Q2 sales generation-by-generation was not disclosed, but on its Q2 earnings call with investors and analysts, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer spoke with enthusiasm about the new iPad’s adoption.

“We’re just learning about the elasticity of demand and the $399 price point is doing well, but I have to tell you the new iPad is on fire and we’re selling them as fast as we can make them,” CFO Peter Oppenheimer said, a sentiment that Tim Cook echoed verbatim later on in the call. This latest release, which saw three million devices sold in its first weekend alone, was Apple’s fastest iPad rollout ever, he said.

The Retina Really Does Sell

In the end, it turns out that a good deal of people out there were willing to pay a significant premium for an iPad with the very latest in super souped up features. “Customers are loving the new iPad with its stunning retina display,” Oppenheimer said.

The CFO was also quick to point out that this is really just the beginning for the device, which made its debut just a month ago in mid-March. “The new iPad was supply constrained last quarter for the full [first] three weeks or so that it was shipping and it actually is still constrained, so mix of new iPad to the iPad 2 is not certain yet.”

64 Million iPads Sold In 2 Years

Apple CEO Tim Cook also expanded a bit on how well the iPad has sold in general, and said he was very bullish about the device’s potential to continue to grow for years to come. “[iPad] applications are so easy to make very meaningful for someone, and there is such an abundance of those,” Cook said during the Q&A portion of the call. “As the ecosystem gets better and better and as we continue to double down on making great products I think that the limit here is nowhere in sight.”

Worldwide, Apple’s lifetime iPad sales across all generations have now topped 67 million, Cook said. “To put that into context it took us 24 years to sell that many Macs, five years for that many iPods, and 3 years for iphones. And we were extremely happy with the trajectory on all those products. I think the iPad, it’s a profound product, the breadth of it is incredible, the appeal of it is universal. I could not be happier with being in the market.”