Apple sees a big jump in iPad unit sales

Apple’s third-quarter earnings are out and the company was quick to highlight its solid iPhone sales and burgeoning services segment. The big surprise, however, was the 15 percent year-over-year increase in iPad unit sales, which seems to contradict the dominating narrative that the company’s iPad segment was losing steam due to lengthier upgrade cycles.

The 15 percent increase brings unit sales for Q3 to 11.4 million on revenue of $4.96 billion. Interestingly, while iPhone unit sales declined 19 percent quarter over quarter, iPad sales shot up 28 percent thanks to new product introductions.

Apple has been increasingly directing attention to the high-end with its iPad Pro line, which now features three different sizes following the reveal of a 10.5-inch model at WWDC this year. While unit sales are up 15 percent, the fact that revenue sales are just up 2 percent suggest that people are still favoring the cheaper tablet offerings. In March, Apple introduced a $329 budget model to replace the more costly iPad Air 2.

In an earnings call, Cook detailed that sales in the education market were up 32 percent year-over-year at nearly 1 million units.

Apple’s stock is up 5 percent after hours.