Apple’s iPad appears to be getting back on track amid a tough market for tablets.
The technology giant said during its quarterly earnings on Thursday that it sold 10.3 million iPads, an 11% increase from last year during the same quarter. IPad revenue amounted to $4.8 billion, a 14% year-over-year bump.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said during a call with analysts that this was Apple’s second consecutive quarter of increased iPad sales. This sales increase reverses an Apple trend over the past several years in which iPad sales fall quarter-by-quarter following a big first quarter, which includes the winter holiday season.
The sales gain is also a noteworthy achievement considering that the overall tablet market is declining as people shift to newer smartphones and cheaper laptops.
As research firm International Data Corporation noted on Friday, global tablet shipments fell 5.4% to 40 million units during the latest quarter. This was the twelfth consecutive quarter of declining tablet shipments, the research firm said.
The fact that Apple has seen two quarters of improved iPad sales is good news for the company, but it’s still a far cry from previous years when overall tablet sales took off. In the first quarter of 2014, for instance, the company said it sold over 26 million iPads for $11.5 billion in revenue.
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Apple is the leading tablet seller, IDC said. The company represents 26% of the overall market, followed by Samsung with 15% and Amazon with 11%.
One reason Apple is still the leaders in tablets is due to the introduction of a less-expensive version of the iPad earlier this year that “helped it to cement the first-place position,” IDC said.
Indeed, Cook said Thursday that “customers have responded very positively to the new iPad lineup,” which includes a cheaper version of the iPad for $329 that debuted in March.
Cook didn’t say which particular models of the iPad were the company’s biggest sellers. However, it’s likely that lower-cost iPads helped boost Apple’s iPad business in the past few quarters more than the iPad Pro, which starts at $649 and can cost as much as $1,280.
