Just more than a month after it was released, Microsoft's suite of Office apps for the iPad is already a massive success.
Speaking at the firm's TechEd customer conference in Houston, Microsoft general manager of its Office division Julia White said the app has been downloaded 27 million times, more than double the number of downloads only one month ago. Given that the apps were released only six weeks ago, this means Microsoft has an average of 4.5 million downloads a week or around 587,000 downloads every day.
Early in April, Microsoft announced that Office for iPad has shot up to the top of the list of most downloaded apps on the iPad. Just one week after its March 27 launch, Microsoft reported that the suite of apps has been downloaded 12 million times.
As of press time, Word still ranks as the fourth most downloaded free app on the iPad, while Excel and PowerPoint have slid down to number 22 and 26 respectively.
Clearly, the Office apps are popular even for those who prefer Apple's iOS devices over Microsoft's Windows-based tablets. However, users can only view and print documents using the free apps. Those who wish to edit their documents need to make an in-app purchase of a subscription to Office 365. A personal subscription costs $9.99 a month or $99 a year. Microsoft also offers enterprise subscriptions ranging from $5 to $15 per user per month, depending on the business' needs.
"Office 365 Home now has 4.4 million subscribers, adding nearly 1 million subscribers in just three months," Microsoft reported in its first-quarter earnings call.
However, the company does not specify what percentage of those with Office 365 subscriptions were made by Office for iPad users, which means we don't really know how much the apps have helped Microsoft in terms of the 100% revenue growth it posted for its cloud-based subscription service.
It is also unclear whether the timing of the apps' release also affected their impressive performance on the Apple App Store. iPad owners have been clamoring for a suite of Office apps for the iPad since the tablet was first introduced in 2010, but Microsoft only responded to the requests only now.
"I believe if it would have been done earlier, it would have been better for Microsoft, frankly," said Apple chief executive Tim Cook at the company's quarterly conference call in April, although he still believes Office is a "key franchise" and he is happy to have it on the iPad.
