iPad shipments boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic but there were predictions of steep declines as people returned to offices and classrooms. If that’s going to happen, it didn’t start in the third quarter of 2021 as iPad shipments actually rose year over year.
Shipments of Android tablets did drop during the July-to-September period, however.
Q3 2021 another good quarter for iPad shipments
Apple doesn’t announce the exact numbers of quarterly iPad shipments, but analysts offer estimates. And the agreement is that the total went up year over year.
Cupertino shipped 14.7 million iPadOS tablets in the September quarter, according to IDC. That’s an annual growth of 4.6%. But rival Strategy Analytics says the total was 17.3 million, an increase of 15%.
Both are working from Apple’s announcement that it brought in $8.3 billion from iPad sales, a year-over-year revenue increase of 22%.
Apple’s Q3 2021 total was likely buoyed by the release of the redesigned iPad mini 6.
iPad against the world
The market-research firms agree that iPad dominates the global tablet market. No surprise, it has for years. IDC says it has 34.6% of the market — Strategy says 38%.
Rival Android makers generally saw their shipments decline. IDC says Samsung shipped 7.5 million units, an 11.1% drop and Amazon’s total was 4.7 million, a 13.3% drop. Lenovo was at 4.3 million last quarter.
