Apple has sold three million new iPads in the device's first weekend on the market, the company has announced.

Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, says in a statement the figures represents ‘the strongest iPad launch yet', although that's not saying much considering previous launches have been limited to the US, while this launch encompassed 10 countries including the UK, Australia, Germany, Japan.

"Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad,” Schiller says, "including the stunning retina display, and we can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.

Apple CEO Tim Cook had already mentioned the iPad's impressive opening weekend in a conference call earlier today, saying the device had ‘a record weekend'.

Apple never released opening weekend sales numbers for iPad 2, although the very first iPad sold 300,000 units on its first day, and reached 1 million sales within 28 days.

New Zealand is among the 25 countries in which the new iPad will be launched this week.