In Apple’s Q1 2011, iPad sales amounted to just 7.33 million units. A year later, Apple sold over 15.4 million, a gain of 111 percent.

During Apple’s earnings report, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “People really want to do multiple things with their tablet. We don’t see the limited eReaders in the same category.” Later he went on to say that he looked at iPad sales on a weekly basis in the quarter and didn’t see any effect from the Kindle Fire. Even the most optimistic estimates put the Amazon Kindle Fire sales in the holiday quarter at a few million units. Put in perspective, Tim Cook said, “We’re very happy with our sales of over 15 million units.”

Mr Cook’s assessment of the scope of the iPad was lengthy: “Nearly all the top companies within major Fortune 500 markets including pharma, manufacturing, hospitality, consumer products, financial service, health care and retail are are actively using iPads to improve work flow, business processes and customer engagements. We are delighted to learn how iPad enables businesses to change the way they work … Retail chains such as Bed, Bath and Beyond use iPads to deliver key business metrics on the sales floor. Wineries are using iPads in their vineyards to call up weather data and soil profile, record quality assessments and make decisions on the spot about whether to harvest their grapes. And in this past quarter, Chinese airlines … also deployed iPads to pilots and crew for flight manuals, documents, and training.” Mr. Cook added out that there are now over 1.5 million iPads in educational institutions.

iPad revenue in the quarter was at US$9.1 billion.