Is the iPad Mini a Smashing Success?

All models of the iPad mini were sold out by early morning on Monday — three days into pre-orders — with Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) online store announcing delayed shipping times for its brand new smaller tablet. All versions of the tablet, in both black and white and in capacities ranging from 16 GB to 64 GB, are now advertised to ship in two weeks. While the white model sold out in about 20 minutes after the start of pre-orders last Friday, some of the stock lasted until 3 a.m. on Monday.

Apple has not announced how many units were made available for pre-orders and how many have been set aside for the opening of retail sales this Friday. The iPad mini will be available starting November 2 at Apple’s retail stores and select resellers in the U.S. and several others countries, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the U.K.

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In comparison, the initial stock of the iPhone 5 sold out in about an hour, while pre-orders of the third-generation iPad with Retina display, released in March, lasted for about two days. Analysts have predicted component supply constraints for the smaller tablet, similar to those seen by the iPhone 5.

Apple unveiled the tablet last week along with an upgrade for the full-sized iPad. The iPad mini sports a 7.9-inch screen with the display pixel configuration similar to that of the iPad 2. While the tablet has been planned with the aim of cutting into sales of the 7-inch tablets from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), it starts at $329, $130 higher than the rival devices. Clearly, the high price has not proved a deterrent to sales yet.

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