Apple's iPad won't be available outside the U.S. until the end of May, a delay of one month from its original global launch date.

(Credit: Apple)

With customers grabbing more than 500,000 iPads during the tablet's first week, demand has been higher than expected, Apple said Wednesday, and will likely exceed supply over the next several weeks. The company said that it's also trying to handle a huge number of pre-orders for the 3G iPad models, which are also supposed to reach the hungry hands of U.S. customers by the end of this month.

Apple had said that on the first day alone, it sold more than 300,000 iPads.

"Faced with this surprisingly strong U.S. demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May," said Apple. "We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10."

Putting a positive spin on the delay, Apple said that while it expected many international customers would be disappointed, "we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason--the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far."

The Wi-Fi version of the iPad hit the the U.S. on April 3, while models offering Wi-Fi + 3G are supposed to be available the end of April. But customers were able to pre-order the tablet starting March 12. Both the Wi-Fi and 3G versions were initially cleared to launch in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.K. at the end of this month.

The iPad's Wi-Fi-only version costs $499 for 16GB of memory, $599 for 32GB, and $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G edition will cost $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB, and $829 for 64GB.

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