“Apple has a smash hit on its hands with the new iPod mini digital music player. The little cousin of the full-size iPod is virtually sold out after less than two weeks in stores, with nearly 100,000 snapped up,” Jefferson Graham writes for USA Today.
[MacDailyNews: the fact is that Apple reported over 100,000 pre-order of the iPod mini – before iteven shipped – so sales by now are far in excess of the 100K number.]
“‘I’ve never seen a product line sell like this,’ says Jack Wahrman, senior merchandising manager at New York’s J&R Music World. ‘The iPod is a phenomenon.’ It’s not a component shortage that’s causing the backlog,” Graham writes. “‘We’re making and shipping them as fast as we can,’ Greg Joswiak, Apple marketing vice president says. He says teens are taking to the cool colors. And the mini is appealing to athletic fans, who like exercising with an ultralight device.”
Graham writes, “It took Apple six weeks to sell 120,000 of the original iPod when it came out in 2001. Apple has now sold over 2 million and has a 70.4% share of digital music player revenue, according to market trackers NPD Group.”
Full article here.
What’s Apple’s revenue share of the PC market I wonder ?
Is the market share ( the 3% we hear so often) on number of seats or on revenue ?
But how can this be�
It’s overpriced (too many people to name)
It’s just a glorified hard drive (Thurrott)
People will just pay the extra $50 for the 15GB iPod (again too many to name)
All I can ask is: What does it feel like to be so unbelievably wrong?
“Is the market share ( the 3% we hear so often) on number of seats or on revenue ?”
Neither. It’s the number of yearly sales compared to everyone else. The installed base (number of seats) is much larger, and the revenue, well, they are one of two computer makers that have a profit at all.
I hate to say this, but cute sells. I think PART of the reason the first iMac did so well was color. I think color computers are a little pass�, but I think cute colors gets certain people to buy something they otherwise would not. I have owned three iPods so far. G1, G3, and a mini (pink so you know). And in all that time with the first two I have only had about two people ask me about them. With my mini people stop me on the street and in elevators and ALWAYS ask. And want to know all about it.
Maybe a cute aluminum colored iBook is in order again. I am kind of over the color computer thing, but I think the masses might not be!
Matthew
I fondled my first mini yesterday at an Apple store. They’re great. I think they make the white ipods look clunky and out of date. As far as colored devices, these colors look great in person. But I think coloring doesn’t have the same impact on ipods as it does on computers. The colored imacs were part of the decor of a room, inherently more stable then the what you’re wearing on any given day. However, colored ibooks fall somewhere in between, so maybe?
A big fat I TOLD YOU SO! goes out to all those Mini bashers who laughed in my face when I predicted exactly how successful the Mini was going to be back on Jan. 6th. Fast forward to March 5th and the product is practically sold out! All at that horrendous $249.00 price point that the nay-sayers predicted would spell the end for the Mini before it even got out of the gate. LOL! What utter fools!
To all the Mini bashers and arm chair economists out there:
Next time, remember how totally wrong you were about this before making another prediction based on your own personal bias and complete ignorance of REAL MARKET DEMAND and trends… Please!
I can’t wait until I get my green iPod mini I ordered (they were sold out at Apple store and I had to ordered it) and smack it on Thurrott’s stupid head!
R.V.
Have you sent an email to Enderle or Thurrot yet?
CALLING ALL OWNERS OF G5 CLUSTERS
Ask Apple to anodise your G5 machines in the same 5 colours of the iPod Mini, imagine how cool 1100 multicoloured G5’s would look.
Eat your heart out Andy Warhol!
If colour is such a big deal then many people will love the HP iPods more than Apple’s own line. Surelly Apple could apply what it learned from the days of Blue Dalmation and Flower Power iMacs into the next generation of iPods.
I emailed Thurrot last week after I read his LongHorn/Wait article, I just had to ask him did he really believe what he had written!
Needless to say, the answers he gave were inconclusive.
I am waiting for that Longhorn BBQ party!
All I can ask is: What does it feel like to be so unbelievably wrong?
Yeah, I’d like to know too! :-p
Not that I’m going to say I told you so or anything, but, I told you guys so!
Btw, has thurrott come out and said that another 100’000 is also just peanuts? I haven’t had anyone to laugh at since yesterday!
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12552
There You go
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Um … as long as they are working at their desks, I believe that all economists would be classified as “arm chair economists” …. =^P
I wonder how many people who the mini bought it for the 4 GB internal compact flash type II card by Hitachi? the CF card to purchase by itself is over $400. there are sites showing how to gut the mini and extract the drive.
I’ve asked an American I know who’s coming here on Tuesday to bring me an iPod mini over. I just hope she can get one. I’m wanting silver, but will take green if no silver available.
Next time, remember how totally wrong you were about this before making another prediction based on your own personal bias and complete ignorance of REAL MARKET DEMAND and trends… Please!
Don’t get your hopes up. No-one learned from the doom predictions for the original iPod so why should they this time. I’m sure a year from now when the iPod mini is knighted, crowned and elected for president of planet earth the enderles and thurrotts will be saying how they were always huge fans and knew how successful the minis would be.
I emailed Thurrot last week after I read his LongHorn/Wait article
Which one was that? I don’t think I’ve heard that joke yet. Link?
“R.V.
Have you sent an email to Enderle or Thurrot yet?”
Nah…Those jokers will never admit they were wrong. If they did, they would spend their entire day writing apologies to everyone they mislead by their ignorant drivel.
I was directing my comments at the hoards of Mini bashers that flooded this and all the other Mac/Apple forums the day the Mini was announced.
Needless to say, we haven’t seen a single one of them step up to the plate and admit that they were completely wrong about the product.
I’ve got a personal list of users from various forums along with their most hilarious Mini bashing comments. The names and quotes live in a text file entitled (ZERO Credibility – Predicted Mini’s Doom). I refer to that sometimes when I see one of these arrogant fools going on about some other thing Apple screwed up on. I reply leaving one of their Mini bashing quotes at the bottom of my reply, with the date.
Tends to really piss them off! ;o) My comeback…”The truth hurts don’t it?”
I’ve got a personal list of users from various forums along with their most hilarious Mini bashing comments
Oooo! Fancy sharing it with us? I’m afraid I can’t remember names very well, so I’ve forgotten which guys here kept bashing the mini’s price and predicted untold death and destruction at one infinite loop, yaknow, the same old stuff. So, anyone care to step forward? Would be a sign of character strength. We won’t laugh. Honest.
Dave H – I have a friend going stateside next week. I have also asked for green or silver – I hope we don’t end up fighting over the same ones. I’ve now said that I’ll take any colour he can find as I’m worried they’ll be all sold out. 🙁
See, I told you that the Mini was overpriced and underpowered. And now look at the sales…uh, never mind!
“Oooo! Fancy sharing it with us?”
Here are a few of my all time favorites from the Apple Discussion forums. Glad I saved them since when Apple archived the pre-release section of the Mini forum, they only saved the current first page of posts. Most of the bashing threads from release day were not saved.
1) “The Mini will sell as well as a dead woodchuck rotting under the porch in the noon day sun.” User: JD1 January 6th, 2004
2) “Face it! The thing will be DOA. Apple screwed up on this one. They have done it before, and they will do it again. User: JD1 January 7th, 2004”
3) “Only a complete fool would be stupid enough to buy this overpriced piece of junk! No one will buy a Mini when for $50.00 they could get the 15gb model instead. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot.” User: Marbles Mahoney, January 27, 2004
The next time you read something similar to the above about some future Apple product, just remember how wrong all the Mini bashers were, and take comfort in the fact that they are not in charge of anything remotely important on the planet. ;o)
Thanks for sharing…
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As for Thurrot and Enderle, they make money and gain fame when people visit their sites. Whenever they make a obviously false claim, it is mostly Mac users who go to their sites. They probably act as flame bait to show their employers how they can still bring in the crowds even when they are wrong.
The next time you read something similar to the above about some future Apple product, just remember how wrong all the Mini bashers were, and take comfort in the fact that they are not in charge of anything remotely important on the planet. ;o)
Amen brother. I liked the last one. It just goes to prove that the world is full of idiots!
What I’d like to know is, why does the Apple net attract so many poor armchair CEOs. They all have the vision and observation powers of a boiled broccoli after being mashed, digested and vomited into a bucket which is then sealed and buried in a waste dump for the rest of eternity. The fact that none of them manage to learn from past experiences (as recent as the original iPod) is a poor indictment of modern man and says much about our western education systems.
On the other hand, it does give us someone to pick on. :-p