Confirming earlier reports of Apple expanding the availability of its iPad, American retailing company Target Corp said in a Friday statement that it will begin selling the device – which is currently available from Apple’s Website and online stores, and through electronics retailers like Best Buy – from October 3.

Though the iPad was also available from a few other smaller retailers through Amazon. com’s online store; the expanded availability of the iPad means that the device, like the iPhone and the iPod, will now be sold by general retail stores.

The expansion of the iPad availability by Apple clearly implies that the company is looking to maintain its lead in the tablet device arena, at a time when an increasing number of manufacturers are coming up with their respective tablets.

Talking about the availability of the iPad at Target from October 3, Peter Fader, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, told MacWorld: “At this point, there’s zero downside to going to Target. With so many competing devices about to come out, it’s important to Apple to continue to dominate the story. You know those devices will be at Target.”

According to reports, Target will initially offer four versions – all of the three WiFi-only version and one 3G-capable version – of the iPad. The starting price point reportedly will be $499, apparently for the WiFi-only 16GB iPad model.