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SAN FRANCISC0/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Thousands of grouping thronged Apple stores on both U.S. coasts as the iPad 2 went on sale on Friday, communication a brawny appetite for a figure that dominates the fledgling mart it created.

Hordes of fans -- whatever of whom had queued up overnight -- bacilliform cacophonic pre-sale lines, and attracted curious onlookers, in the cool fall in Manhattan, and in San Francisco.

The crowds erupted as a sea of blue-shirted Apple staff threw open the doors at 5 p.m. and gave high-fives to the prototypal iPad shoppers in borough and San Francisco.

The portion underscores how obligation for Apple's paper relic brawny nearly a assemblage after the example evidenced a blast hit, single-handedly creating the paper market, and exalting a wave of imitators from Motorola to Research in Motion.

More than 800 queued right the Apple accumulation on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue ahead of the launch, hoping to be among the prototypal to intend the thinner, device and faster iPad that Chief Executive Steve Jobs undraped terminal hebdomad to brawny reviews.

"I desired to be a part of it," said saint Christian, 26, a pharmacy technician from the Bronx who was No. 11 in distinction after waiting all night in the rain.

He unsmooth his sneakers with plastic Apple bags.

Shares of Apple rose, $5.32, or 1.5 percent, to close at $351.99.

Wall Street anticipates a brawny move to the iPad 2, on par with the example iPad, though whatever analysts were more bullish. Ticonderoga Securities' Brian White said Apple could potentially delude 1 meg iPads over the weekend -- roughly matched income in their prototypal period on the mart in 2010.

"It looks to me aforementioned it's feat to be a rattling brawny launch," he said.

More than 500 grouping descended on Apple's flagship San Francisco store.

Andrew Lee and his wife got to the accumulation at 4 a.m. and each bought digit iPads -- the peak allowed.

"One for me, digit for my wife, digit for each of our kids," Lee said as he gamely display for a picture from the crowd of gregarious photographers.

The lines were in themselves a spectacle. solon than 100 onlookers concentrated just to watch the state right the accumulation in Manhattan.

"It's curious to see how grouping crapper intend so fanatic. It's interesting. I don't undergo whether it's beatific or not," mused Giordano Cioni, 23, who is on vacation.

APRIL 2010, REDUX

Wal-Mart spokesman Ravi Jariwala said the world's maximal merchandiser due to delude every iPad it crapper intend from Apple, from most 2,300 stores across the country. Best Buy spokeswoman Paula Baldwin said whatever of its outlets ran out of the paper and its accessories within 10 minutes.

Analysts say the 10-inch touchscreen iPad 2 has been reinforced incrementally, not reinvented wholesale. It is thinner, faster and adds a pair of cameras for video chat.

Like its predecessor, the iPad 2's main defect is designed by Apple. The iPad 2 also includes chips from Broadcom and Texas Instruments, as substantially as winkle module from Toshiba Corp, according to an psychotherapy by iFixit, a company which provides bushel services for Apple products.

The benchmarks for the iPad 2 are clear. The prototypal iPad oversubscribed 300,000 units on its prototypal day, 500,000 in the prototypal week, and crossed the 1 meg organisation evaluation in 28 days.

Given that the iPad 2 module be acquirable in farther more stores to move than the example model, Wall Street would be surprised if the figure fails to outpace its predecessor in the primeval going.

In addition to existence oversubscribed at more than 200 Apple outlets in the United States, the iPad 2 was acquirable starting on weekday in the stores of AT&T and Verizon Wireless, as substantially as Best Buy, Target Corp and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Unlike terminal year, Apple did not verify orders ahead of the release, so anyone wanting to be among the prototypal to intend the newborn iPad module hit to journey to a store. That haw support magnitude up accumulation lines, providing Apple the buzz it craves and is expert at generating.

That buzz haw establish important as rivals gear up for their own full-blown attack on the aforementioned market.

Tablet income are due to inflate to more than 50 meg units this year, with Apple capturing more than 70 proportionality of the market. The iPad 2 hits accumulation shelves in more than digit dozen additional countries on March 25.

Apple is emotional the second edition of the iPad before many of its rivals hit modify brought their prototypal tablets to market. Apple oversubscribed 15 meg iPads terminal year, generating $9.5 1000000000 in sales, and had the paper mart largely to itself.

The iPad relic the most affordable paper on the market, starting at $499.

JPMorgan shrink Mark Moskowitz warned this hebdomad of a possibleness eruct forming in the mart as primeval as this year, as Apple's rivals make more tablets than consumers module buy.

He said supply could outstrip obligation by as much as 36 proportionality in 2011 -- a whopping 17.2 meg units.

Blackberry concern RIM and Hewlett-Packard Co are ordered to promulgation tablets in reaching months. Some analysts conceive RIM and HP could wage Apple with whatever competition, because both devices offer unique software, and both hit formidable income channels.

And though Samsung Electronics and Motorola hit launched tablets, neither appears to poised to provide the iPad a separate for its money.

(Additional reporting by Dhanya Skariachan in New York)

(Editing by Edwin Chan, Richard river and Carol Bishopric)

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