How many iPads did Apple sell in fiscal Q3?

“You might think that estimating iPad sales for the fiscal quarter that ended on June 26 would be a pretty easy call for analysts, given that Apple (AAPL) let it be known five days before the end of the quarter that it sold its 3 millionth iPad on June 21,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.

“Yet the analysts we polled offered estimates that ranged from a high of 3.75 million to a low of 2.5 million,” Elmer-DeWitt reports. “In fact, the most recent published estimates of five analysts are still at 3 million or fewer.”

Elmer-DeWitt reports, “By the end of the quarter, iPads were selling at a rate of 45,000 a day. Extrapolating from the iPad’s current trajectory, Apple could sell from 25 million to 42 million units in fiscal 2011, its first full year of sales.”

Full article, with a list of analysts’ Q3 iPad estimates, here.

MacDailyNews Take: All of the analysts in Elmer-Dewitt’s report seem to have a fetish for laughably lowballing iPad unit sales estimates. They’re so far off that we don’t know why they even bother.

MacDailyNews Note: Apple is scheduled to report their fiscal Q310 results on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 5pm EDT/2pm PDT.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “iWill” for the heads up.]