According to a report, authorized stores selling Apple's latest iPad ran out of stock in a few hours of the gadget being put on sale in Hong Kong which saw thousands of people queuing outside the shops, waiting to lay their hands on the new gadget.

A group of youngsters in Hong Kong queued outside one of the four authorized stores in the Mongkok district of the city from as early as 2 am in the morning.

Later, hundreds of people started to queue outside the four shops before they had even opened.

The sales of the iPad have been confined to just 21 stores in the city, and only 6,000 units were available in the sale on Friday. In Asia, the iPad are being sold only in the select countries of Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.

The iPad was being sold at Hong Kong at the same price as in the United States. The range of storage capacity of the gadget is as much as up to 16-gigabyte with additional features of Wi-fi and 3G.

The slated price was 4,888 Hong Kong dollars (629 US dollars) for the most expensive one and the cheapest one was 3,888 Hong Kong dollars.