Why the new iPad is so huge for Apple

Great product at a great price, rare market opportunity, and a big, fast-growing business.

Apple could potentially sell 80 million iPads this year, about twice as many as it did last year, and more than the number of iPad 1s and iPad 2s combined. At an average price around $550, that’s about $45 billion in sales – about the same amount as all of Apple generated in 2009, the year before the iPad launched.