Apple Sells Almost 15 Million iPads to Date

Apple's piggy bank has put on a little weight, as the company announced their gargantuan earnings for the first quarter of 2011. In addition to earning $26.74 billion in revenue, the Mac maker sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter. That's nearly as many as they sold in Q3 (when the tablet launched, 3.27 million) and Q4 (4.19 million) combined. Total sales of the iPad, after this quarter’s announcement, come to 14.79 million units.

Macs and iPhones also sold in record numbers, with Apple selling 4.13 million and 16.24 million of each, respectively. There was a slight decline in the number of iPods sold, down 7% from last year to 19.45 million. For perspective on how these numbers translate into monetary gains, Apple’s gross net quarterly profit was $6 billion this quarter, compared to $3.38 billion at the same time last year.

The announcement of these record sales also brought a lot of smack talk from Apple COO Tim Cook regarding the quality of the iPad's competition. He thrashed Apple's primary competitors in the market, referring to Android tabs as "a scaled-up smartphone" and "not even a real tablet experience." And when the talk turned to Android Honeycomb devices, Cook hardly viewed them as being any kind of threat in the near-future, saying "today they're vapor." He also called the Windows 7 offerings "big, heavy and expensive," and accused them of having "weak battery life."

How much consumers agree with Cook’s evaluations will be seen in 2011, as a bevy of Android and Windows tablet offerings hit the market hoping to relieve the iPad of its record sales. Continue ►