iPad Sales in a Slump
While the iPad category actually shrank over Q1 2021, that’s probably not surprising considering that Apple had few significant iPad releases last fall. While the iPad mini 6 was certainly a welcome upgrade to the family, it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the fourth-generation iPad Air that came along in the fall of 2020, with its new colours, side-button Touch ID, and iPad Pro like design.
In fact, compared to Q1 2021, it’s probably fair to say that the iPad category had nowhere to go but down. Between the new iPad Air and the demand for tablet-like devices brought on by the global pandemic, the iPad category grew last year by an unbelievable 41 percent. In Q1 2020, however, it actually dropped by 11.2 percent, which wasn’t all that surprising coming out of a fall event where only a single new entry-level iPad model was introduced.
Notably, Apple’s Q4 2020 numbers — those from the quarter that ended last September — showed considerably better iPad sales of $8.4 billion. Of course, that was also the quarter that came along just after the new M1-powered iPad Pro models were released.
Despite the negative growth, however, Apple’s CFO Luca Maestri said that half of Apple’s iPad sales went to buyers that were entirely new to the product family. He also added that supply constraints affected Apple’s ability to sell more iPads; the company simply couldn’t keep up with demand, and estimates that they could have done $1.2 billion more in iPad sales had they been able to do so.