Apple may release iPad mini in India this week

Apple's new iPad mini is expected to release in India next week.

Though Apple has not come up with a release date, reports indicate that shipments are on the way and the base version of the 7.9-inch tablet will sell for Rs 21,900.

Apple unveiled the iPad mini at a special event held in San Jose, California on October 23. iPad mini is a smaller version of the original tablet designed to spearhead its foray into a segment now dominated by Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire and Google Inc's Nexus 7.

Tradus, an online retailer, is already selling all 3 versions of iPad mini - 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, priced at Rs 26,990, Rs 34,990 and Rs 43,490, respectively (including taxes).

Apple Inc has reportedly sold 3 million of its new iPads in the first three days the tablet computers were available, driving optimism for a strong holiday quarter despite intensifying competition.

Sales of the 7.9-inch iPad mini and fourth-generation 9.7-inch version, both Wi-Fi only models, were double the first-weekend sales of the Wi-Fi iPad sold in March, Apple in a recent statement.

Apple has however not given a break numbers for the crucial iPad mini.

Analysts estimate that about 2.3 million of the new iPads sold over the weekend were the mini-tablets, surpassing expectations of 1 million to 1.5 million.