Is this a turning point for tablets? In its quarterly earnings report for the first three months of 2014, Apple has recorded a second drop in sales for iPad. Since Christmas it’s sold 16.35 million iPads into retail channels, compared to 19.48 million last year.
Sales for April-July in 2013 were also down year on year.
That’s a pretty big drop for a flagship product, although any effect on the bottom line is masked by the utter dominance of iPhone. While revenue from iPad sales dropped $1.1bn (R12bn), selling an extra 6.4 million iPhones over this time last year increased revenue for that division by $4bn.
Analysts have recently pointed out that iPad owners don’t tend to upgrade their tablets often – if at all. Also, increased competition from the likes of Samsung and Google will have put a dent in Apple’s market.
Sales of the iPod music player have also dropped, from 5.6million in the first three months of 2013, to 2.8million this year. That means that overall revenues rose by $2bn to $45.56bn (R481bn). It’s quarterly profit on that is $10.2bn.
Full figures below.
Apple Q2 2014 Device Sales (millions) | |||||
Q2’2014 | Q1’2014 | Q2’2013 | |||
iPhone | 43.719 | 51.025 | 37.430 | ||
iPad | 16.350 | 26.035 | 19.477 | ||
Mac | 4.136 | 4.837 | 3.952 | ||
iPod | 2.761 | 6.049 | 5.633 |
Apple Q2 2014 Revenue by Product (billions) | |||||
Q2’2014 | Q1’2014 | Q2’2013 | Revenue for current quarter | ||
iPhone | $26.064 | $32.498 | $22.955 | 57.1% | |
iPad | $7.610 | $11.468 | $8.746 | 16.7% | |
Mac | $5.519 | $6.395 | $5.447 | 12.1% | |
iPod | $0.461 | $0.973 | $0.962 | 1% | |
iTunes/Software/Services | $4.573 | $4.397 | $4.114 | 10% | |
Accessories | $1.419 | $1.863 | $1.379 | 3.1% |