A man tries out Apple’s new iPad after its launch event in San Francisco, California, the United States, Jan. 27, 2010. ©Xinhua

BEIJING, Sept. 14 — Apple Inc. plans to begin official sales of its iPad tablet computer this Friday in China, the company announced on Monday.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the Wi-Fi models of the iPad will be available to customers through two Apple stores in China and through authorized resellers.

The beginning of the sales will start on Friday at 10 a.m., according to the newspaper.

The iPad’s price will be higher in China than in the United States. It will charge from 3,988 yuan (about 590 U.S. dollars), for the 16-gigabyte iPad, to 5,588 yuan (about 827 U.S. dollars), for the 64-gigabyte model, the newspaper said.

The prices of the two models in the U.S. are 499 and 699 U.S. dollars respectively.

Before this users in China had been buying iPads brought into the country by traders on much higher prices. The Wall Street Journal said they run as much as 1,000 U.S. dollars.

The iPad first went on sale in the U.S. on April 3 this year, and became available internationally in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and Britain on May 28.

On June 21, Apple announced it had sold three million iPads worldwide. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2010-09/14/c_13493792.htm