Apple and its iPads Had a Huge 3rd Quarter

Apple just reported an unexpectedly huge 3rd quarter overall, with revenue up 10.9% year over year. Earnings-wise, it’s actually the biggest third quarter in company history. Revenue and sales increased pretty much across the board, including iPhone sales, making Apple the only company that saw an increase in smartphone sales last quarter,

All of that aside, it was the iPad that saw the biggest increase of all year over year, with sales up a whopping 31%. That’s a significant increase, especially on the heels of two straight quarters of declining revenues.

Photo Source: MacWorld

This jump is thought to have been spurred on by strong sales due to COVID-19 shutdowns. Purchases for school, home and office all likely increased due to people being at home and looking for better ways to work remotely. This theory is bolstered by the fact that the Mac saw the second largest surge during the last quarter, with sales up 22% year over year.

Both the Mac and iPad have had recent device releases with solid upgrades. While new MacBooks have come with improved keyboards and solid spec bumps, the iPad Pro was finally updated a bit earlier this year. The bigger upgrade there was the inclusion of trackpad support and the release of the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pros and Logitech trackpad keyboards for the lower-tier iPads. All of these made for attractive purchases for Apple fans looking to upgrade their home setups.

It will be interesting to see if iPad sales hold steady over the coming quarters, or if this was a momentary blip. If the rumors are correct and Apple is preparing to release new iPads in the latter half of 2020, they could possibly be sustained. There have been shortages of iPad Pros in the supply chain lately and many areas in the US have returned to partial shutdowns and are either considering or have decided on remote schooling. With all of this going on and new hardware likely in the pipeline, these sales levels could potentially be sustained for at least a while. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming months.