One lesson kids are learning in school this year is that the iPad is not just for playing Angry Birds, according to new data that suggests iPad sales are taking away from PC sales in schools.
A note to investors from industry analyst Charlie Wolf, of Needham & Company, said that PC sales in the U.S. education market for the June quarter dropped by 13.9 percent, or 265,000 units, from last year, Apple Insider reported. During the same period, however, Apple sold nearly a million iPads to schools, twice the amount sold the year before. Part of the sales boost is just from iPad sales growing overall, Wolf said, but the slide in PC sales means that in many places iPads may be replacing PCs.
“We believe the inescapable conclusion is that the iPad is beginning to cannibalize a material portion of PC sales in this market,” Wolf wrote in his note.
Sales for iPads have been growing rapidly everywhere else, too. According to MacWorld, iPad sales in the June quarter totaled a record 17 million, an increase of 84 percent over last year.
As students jump on the iPad trend, it could mean a record amount of dropped tablets and cracked screens, too. Fortunately, schools always have the option of iPad repair from iResQ to deal with those schoolyard mistakes. In fact, iResQ specializes in bulk repairs for schools with 1:1 iPad programs, ensuring that broken devices don't slow down the learning process.