More iBook Pre-Order Stats, Color Breakdown

Last week we noted that CompUSA is rumored to have preorderd over 50,000 iBooks for their 200 locations nationwide — providing solid evidence that Apple would reach, and most likely exceed, expectations for iBook presales.

To support these claims, new information from anonymous sources states that, as of August 2nd — less than two weeks after its announcement — iBook preorders had already exceeded Apple's predictions for units to be preordered by the end of August.

In addition to the 50,000 units preordered by CompUSA, sources say that Pinacore, the much smaller of Apple's two national distributors, has placed an initial order of 4,000 iBooks — 2,000 of each flavor. Exact preorder numbers from Ingram Micro, Apple's other national distributor, have yet to be confirmed.

To put some other numbers into perspective, sources at MacMall, MacZone, ClubMac, and MacWarehouse noted that they have each placed preorders of around 1,000 units, in some cases more. Other, much larger, resellers such as CDW are playing things by ear, initially ordering a mere 400 units.

To date, Blueberry iBook presales are outnumbering Tangerine at a ratio of about 3 to 2. Some examples include 100 backorders of Blueberry iBooks, compared to 59 Tangerine iBooks at MacMall, and 66 Blueberry to 49 Tangerine at MacZone.

The Ingram Micro iBook preorder total is expected to be in the same arena as the CompUSA figure. We hope to update this report with an exact number soon, if not sometime later today. In the meantime, the most important fact to note after glancing over these numbers is that these figures only represent preorders in the Unite States. And the US accounts for only around half of Apple's total sales, worldwide.