by 
During Apple’s earnings call today for its fiscal Q3, the company shared an update on iPad sales into the education market noting that it’s now up to 13 million iPads sold worldwide. That’s up from the 8 million units worldwide it reported in February of last year meaning the company sold 5 million iPads into education in just over a year. Apple last year noted that it also sold 4.5M iPads into the U.S. education market. This year, the company said it currently has 85{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b} share of the US education tablet market.
Apple also seemed to address speculation about weaker iPad sales and the future of the category with Tim Cook noting that the company remains “bullish about the future of the tablet market.” Cook noted that the new deal with IBM is one catalyst for growth in the tablet category and also went over some numbers about penetration in the enterprise including iPads in 99{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b} of Fortune 500 companies and 93{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b} of the global 500. “When we dig into it though our market share in the commercial sector in the US is good, it’s 76{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b}, the penetration in business is low, it’s only 20. If you looked at the penetration of notebooks in business it would be over 60. We think there is a substantial upside in business…”
Cook also noted that more than 50{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b} of the iPads Apple is selling are going to someone who is a first time tablet buyer, many of which are coming from countries outside the US where tablet sales are growing faster: “The market is bifurcated on iPad. In the BRIC countries, iPad did extremely well. The growth was very high. China it was in the 50’s, the middle east it was in the 60’s. In the developed countries like the US, the market is clearly weaker there…”
Filed under: AAPL Company 
Check out 9to5Mac for more breaking coverage of AAPL Company.
What do you think? Discuss “Tim Cook says Apple is ‘bullish about future tablet market’, now at 13M iPads into education
