Apple delays global rollout of iPad

Apple's iPad won't be available outside the U.S. until the end of May, a delay of a month from its original global launch date.

With customers grabbing more than 500,000 iPads during the tablet's first week, demand has been higher than expected, Apple said Wednesday, and will likely exceed supply over the next several weeks. The company said that it's also trying to handle a huge number of preorders for the 3G iPad models, which are also supposed to reach the hands of U.S. customers by the end of this month.

Apple had said that on the first day, it sold more than 300,000 iPads.

"Faced with this surprisingly strong U.S. demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May," said Apple. "We will announce international pricing and begin taking online preorders on Monday, May 10."

:story: Full story: c|net