Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), for the first time ever, generated revenue from selling iOS and Mac products for education beyond $1 billion. iPads were one of the popular gadgets that saw scorching demand accounting for an almost 94% tablet market share in the education sector.
Efforts paying off
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced these numbers during the quarterly conference call. The statistics reflect the growing presence of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the education market where Windows-based PCs continues to dominate.
Total education sales were up 8% year on year for the September quarter, and iPad sales climbed 22% in the same quarter. Mac sales also rallied by 8% compared to the last year’s quarter. The performance looks much more impressive when considering that research firm IDC expected PC sales to be down by 10% in 2013, with educational PC sales even worse.
The Cupertino-based firm has been working vigorously to increase sales of the iPad in education, taking steps such as offering iTunes accounts for pre-teens before the school session starts in Augus. This enabled students to purchase textbooks and education material from iTunes and the iBookstore.
Transition helping Apple
Apple is getting support from the drift made by the traditional classrooms by adopting tablets instead the traditional textbooks. iPads are being used by a number of schools in the United States for better learning process, and giving access to teachers to create, distribute and connect with iBooks Author and other iOS device management software. For instance, a school system in the Netherlands gave students iPads instead of traditional textbooks along with other Apple products.
The trend of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPad taking a chunk out of PC sales is not new. A year ago, a report signaled the same news that the iPad was rapidly gaining traction in educational institutions.
Other devices are no threat
Cook dismissed the idea that Chrome Books and other rivals providing similar product at lower costs to the institutions are any kind of challenge for Apple.
“We see Chrome Books in some places,” he said, “but the vast majority of people are buying PC/Mac or an iPad.” The CEO also said that he is more than satisfied with the performance of the iPad in the past three months, which added 94% of tablets in education.
