Apple's education sales had a very strong quarter. The company said it sold a a record number of Macs and saw 20 percent year-over-year growth, which is significantly greater than IDC's most recently published forecast for the U.S. education market for the quarter. "It was the most successful back-to-school quarter ever for our higher ed business, where shipments of Mac portables increased 49% year over year," Apple told investors on the conference call. "This result was due in large part to the popularity of the MacBook in higher ed, as well as our very successful back-to-school promotion." Apple also noted that it had a "very, very strong" back to school and education sales season and two including two large K-12 deals that totaled 50,000 units during the quarter, which helped it reach its record Mac sales of 1.6 million in the quarter, significantly greater than the previous quarterly record of 1.38 million Macs sold in the first quarter of Apple's fiscal 2000.