Apple released their financial earnings report for their Q426 fiscal quarter ending September 26, 2026, and unfortunately iPad (along with Wearables) was one of the blights on an otherwise stellar quarter, with revenue dropping 10.4% year over year.

Financial Breakdown

Metric	Q4 2026	Q4 2025	Change
iPad Net Sales	$6,229M	$6,952M	-10.4%
Total Net Sales	$114,477M	$102,466M	+11.7%

The 10.4% drop in iPad revenue stands out against the double-digit growth seen for iPhone (up 17.5%) and Mac (up 23.7%).

Another Quarter of “Tough Compare”

Two factors were cited in the iPad’s revenue decline. During the earnings call, CFO Kevan Parekh cited both general supply constraints affecting all of consumer tech right now (i.e. memory and storage) as well as a tough compare against the year-ago quarter because of the iPad (A16).

This year, we’ve only seen the release of the M4 iPad Air, as the refresh of the base iPad is rumored to be pushed to the first half of 2027.

The Silver Lining: User Base Growth

Despite the financial headwinds, the iPad’s user growth continues. As is mentioned almost every quarter, Parekh highlighted that “…over half of the customers who purchased an iPad were new to the product”.

While Q4 may not have been a blockbuster quarter for iPad revenue, the continued expansion of the user base suggests that the platform’s long-term potential remains intact.

It will be interesting to see what effect the iPad Mini (A20 Pro) being released this Friday will have in the next quarter. It’s releasing at an…interesting time with the recent release of the similarly sized iPhone Duo. But nonetheless, people seem excited about the OLED update to Apple’s smallest tablet.