“While U.S. shoppers had no problem getting theirs, in most of Europe the digital music players were scarce before Christmas,” Carol Matlack and Matt Vella write for BusinessWeek. “Major retailers in France and Germany started running out of nanos in mid-December, and many are still waiting for fresh supplies of the most popular model, the black 4-gigabyte… While Apple hasn’t yet reported fourth-quarter sales, it’s already clear that the iPod was one of this holiday season’s megahits. Citigroup Global Markets analyst Richard Gardner recently raised his estimate of fourth-quarter iPod shipments to 12.5 million, up an astounding 173% from the year-earlier quarter. That’s based on zooming sales of the nano, and stronger-than-expected demand for the recently introduced fifth-generation iPod, which can play videos as well as handle music and photos.”
“Did Apple, by underestimating demand, lose millions in potential sales? In Europe, supplies started dwindling well before Christmas. By Dec. 15, bloggers on http://www.macbidouille.com, a French site for Macintosh aficionados, were reporting that Apple France had warned merchants that it had run out of iPods and could not guarantee further deliveries for the holiday season. Outlets of Germany’s two biggest electronics retailers, MediaMarkt and Saturn, report that stocks ran out in early December and haven’t yet been replenished,” Matlack and Vella write. “Even if Apple lost out on some pre-Christmas sales, it can take consolation in the fact that most disappointed customers didn’t settle for competing brands. Mathieu Charpentier, who heads the digital-music department at the Champs Elysées FNAC, says he gave up trying to persuade shoppers to buy music players made by other manufacturers. ‘We can’t sell a customer who wants an iPod another player,’ he says. Maybe if European shoppers are very, very good, they’ll get their nanos by Easter.”
Full article here.
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Well for goodness sakes at least help the good folks over in the UK!!!
Dont the French always surrender?
i don’t believe apple lose millions…. if consumers really want an ipod, they can order it online. there are still many ways to get an ipod.
You make an estimate, that’s all you can do. Apple can’t see the future.
you don’t want to understimate, then you make less money than you could have but still a ton.
but you SURE as heck don’t want to overestimate, and pay to build/ship/warehouse a bunch of players they you’ll have to admit later you couldn’t sell. that’s called getting cocky.
There were plenty here in Denmark. And plenty buying too.
probably same procedure as the last three years:
apple produces iPods to the max (at least I´d hope that), and in case a shortage is close / to be expected, it is “US first”, which sucks for anyone not being in the US.
(I can´t really blame Apple, it´s a US based business, and noone else but them is to decide where they sell how much – although they could profit by the hefty markup they apply in europe)
The one thing that really irks me is te season of earnings releases: Then, as regular as can be, they celebrate the awesome revenue development in the US, and imply that the rest of the world didn´t develop as good. Which is crap, when they limit the flow of goods to “rest of world” 🙁
matt
Eurpoe != Europe. Just saying.
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I don’t think it was a case of Apple underestimating, more a case of the suppliers (Samsung etc) not being able to ramp up demand fast enough and a limited supplu of clickwheels until the last minute as well as a few LCD screen supply issue from reports I have seen that served to limit the supply capacity to ‘only’ 11 million units for the Christmas run up – or there abouts.
Until the end of last year, the iPod didn’t have the buzz in mainland Europe that it enjoyed in the US and UK. In France, it suddenly became huge news after being virtually ignored for three years. Maybe Apple did miss out, but the next quarter sales in these countries will be huge, especially when all those disappointed francais & deutsch get fed up with their new Creative and decide to upgrade to the real thing.
iPods were selling like mad here in London, but then we have an Apple Store or two, so supply was guaranteed.
Most of the shops in Madrid, Spain, ran out of iPods during october. In november, it was impossible to find any iPod at either the Fnac or El Corte Inglés. In december, they got some but not a lot. At the Fnac, the only model they had available was the white iPod video 60Gb. At the Corte Inglés, a saler told me they were loosing tenth of customers every day.
In my opinion, Apple has lost a lot of customers in Europe during christmas.
Here’s a Brit experience.
Ordered an engraved black 30gb iPod on 12 December online from Applestore UK.
Arrived Special Delivery (premium service over here at no charge from Apple) 2 days later.
Boom. Job done.
Can’t do better than that I’d say!
I don’t think there were major supply problems in UK at least. It was always possible to order any iPod from Apple store and get it shipped within a few days. I checked this up until quite late in the shopping calendar. The exception was the 1GB shuffle which seemed sold out everywhere. Sure, you couldn’t get SOME iPods at some retail outlets, but even then I generally saw most models available and all models were available at different places at any time.
Can’t speak for France or Germany, but I would have thought if Apple could supply them on the UK store, they could do the same in those countries too.
Certainly the shops my UK city were down to the last one or two 2gb white iPod nano’s and 60gb iPods, everything else had gone. That was over a week before Christmas. I also know of folks who rang around regional retailers hunting down black iPod nano’s to try not to dissapoit their sons.. (and failing).
ah.. these reporters are brilliant.. if anything THEY underestimated demand..
gee let me think “apple may have made a big mistake killing the ipod mini”
“apple may have made a huge mistake putting out a cheaper ipod ” (the mini)
I could go on and on…
At least here in Norway most outlets and online stores were out of nanos in mid December and posted delivery around mid January. I found only a 4Gig white nano at a local store, heavily overprized to save Christmas! (present for my girlfriend…)
I know several people that could’nt get hold of nanos till Christmas…
In Germany the shelves for ipOds were empty for the most part in early December. One wonders if it is Apple´s fault or that the electronic stores underestimated demand and did not order enough.
(But then Apple Germany just kind of sucks – probably the worst operating division in all of Apple.)
The problem is they underestimate the way most people shop in Europe (and especially Germany). Sure, there are lots of online stores including the apple one but there are too many people that don’t want to shop online. Credit cards aren’t that common in Germany (I don’t know anyone who’s got one) neither is PayPal or other online payment methods. So you can hardly access the iTMS. I don’t know where to buy the vouchers and few people have an interest in that anyway without an iPod. Their advertisement is ridicolously placed and don’t leave the feeling that it’s an interesting store.
Anyway some of the only stores lack the iPods as well. Got my ipod from cyberport and the 30gb white was the only one (except the 512mb shuffle) that is available. All other models won’t be shipped before the 12th Jan (?!). In other shops it’s hard to find the iPods alltogether.
The best way to sell ipods here remains “a lot of shops”. If Media Markt sells them they will sell millions. If they are available in small shops people will try them and find out how wonderful they are. Apple hasn’t that much market share in Germany and no shops. There’s Gravis which sells mostly apple stuff but they suck and they sell other products too. How shall customers recognize Apple?
MDN Magic Word: growth as in “Apple stores in Germany -> iPods -> iTMS sales growth guaranteed.”
Aren’t analysts just so much fun? If iPods sell out, that’s horrible for Apple, because they underestimated demand and are missing out on bazillions in revenue. But if iPods don’t sell out, that’s horrible for Apple, because iPods aren’t selling as well as expected and it’s the beginning of the end!