Barclays Capital’s analyst Ben Reitzes believes that Apple will sell more than 1.2 million iPads in first three months. Apple will start shipping the iPad on April 3rd and according to The Wall Street Journal the company already has pre-orders for hundreds of thousands of units.

“iPad yield should improve dramatically throughout the year even if the launch starts out capacity constrained,” Reitzes wrote in a research note. “These developments support upside to consensus forecasts for the iPad, should demand materialize like we think it can. We estimate Apple will sell almost 5 million iPads for CY10; including 1.2 million in the June quarter – which could prove conservative.”

Reitzes also believes that Apple will launch iPhone in new form factor. He says “Also, we have increased confidence that Apple will make a big splash this summer with a new iPhone form factor. We believe that the new model will launch with considerable fanfare and expect unit expectations to rise in turn.”

Our sources say that Apple already has about half million iPad pre-orders and if sales rate continue at this pace after launch Apple might cross the one million mark before end of April. Apple will also launch iPad in six more countries by end of April, which should further increase sales momentum for iPad.

As for the iPhone, we have heard that Apple has been testing two distinctive iPhone models for past six months. So it’s very likely we will have two different iPhone form factors by end of this year.
[Via All Things Digital]