Due to ‘surprisingly strong US demand’, Apple has officially delayed the international iPad launch by a whole month, now at the end of May. Apple also revealed that more than 500,000 iPads were sold in its first week of launch in the US, which was “far higher” than they have anticipated. Furthermore, Apple will announce the pricing and begin to take iPad pre-orders for international customers on May 10.

In addition, it looks like Vodafone, O2 and Orange will be carrying the iPad in the UK, Australia, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Or you can simply get one on eBay like now.

CUPERTINO, Calif., April 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ —

Apple today released the following statement:

Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad™. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.

Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May. We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10. We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason-the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.

© 2010 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh and iPad are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

In addition, given that the initial shipment of iPads are Wi-Fi only, the carrier is throwing in the Huawei i-Mo 3G modem to the deal, a wireless wifi router.

[via Tams|Jungle]