iBook Retail Pre-Orders to Exceed iMac Numbers

During the months that lead up to the Consumer Portable's introduction, rumor had it that Apple was preparing for the most successful product launch in the history of the company. So far, the iBook has lived up to its expectations, capturing headlines on almost all daily newspapers across the world, and landing feature articles in many of America's most respected publications, such as Time Magazine, Newsweek, and so forth.

There's no question that the iBook has caused an industry stir, attracting far more attention than the iMac did during its introduction. Then again — this time last year, the media was still depicting Apple's demise when the iMac hit them in the face, leaving them more confused than ever before. The first foreshadowing of the iMac's success came in the form of an Apple press release that touted an outstanding 150,000 pre-orders of the machine following its announcement.

iBook pre-orders have taken off at an even greater pace, leaving little doubt that Apple will have a significant announcement on the subject to leverage their stock price sometime in the near future. According to well-placed sources in Apple Retail, CompUSA alone has put in a pre-order of 50,000 units for its 200-somewhat stores nationwide. This number is up from under 15,000 units that they had initially ordered before the portable was officially announced.

These numbers are much higher than those iMac orders placed by the retailer last summer. Additionally, Apple must now stock approximately 825 Sears locations. Ingram Micro, one of Apple's two major distributors who will fill orders for the majority of Apple resellers, has yet to place their orders for Apple's iBook.