Apple said it sold one million of its freshly launched iPad tablet computers in just 28 days, half the time it took for the company to sell the same number of iPhones.

"One million iPads in 28 days - that's less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with (the) iPhone," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement.

"Demand continues to exceed supply and we're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers."

The level of demand in the US alone, where the iPad launched on April 3, forced Apple to announce it would delay the tablet's international release by a month, until late this month. Both versions of the iPad are expected to go on sale simultaneously in late May in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and Britain. The much-heralded tablet allows users to watch video, listen to music, play games, surf the Web or read electronic books.

At $499, the cheapest model is priced to compete directly with Amazon's popular Kindle and users can download e-books from Apple's iBookstore, as well as applications from the online "App" Store.