As Apple announced that it had sold more than two million of its new iPad touchscreen tablets since the launch two months ago, analysts at RBC Capital Markets estimated that by the end of the year, over eight million units will have been sold worldwide.

The success of the iPad has underlined the resurgence of the Apple brand, which has now reportedly overtaken Microsoft as the biggest technology company in the world by market capitalisation.

There has been intense demand for the devices worldwide. It took just under a month for Apple to notch up one million sales, making it more popular than the iPhone, which took 74 days to hit the same figure in 2007.