“Shares of Apple were down almost 2 percent on Nasdaq where iPod chip supplier PortalPlayer Inc. shares fell almost 4 percent. SigmaTel Inc., a supplier for iPod Shuffles, saw shares fall almost 11 percent and another supplier, Synaptics Inc., was down almost 2 percent,” Reuters reports. “Early on Monday Creative Technology Ltd., a rival digital music player maker cut its sales outlook for the current quarter to 50 percent growth from a year ago from its earlier expectation for 65 percent to 80 percent growth. ‘If Creative music player sales are soft it infers that Apple sales are soft,’ said Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Or it could simply imply that nobody wants Creative’s also-ran music players because they all want Apple iPods instead. When GM couldn’t sell Oldsmobiles, did that news drag down Toyota shares?
Apple Computer (AAPL) shares are currently slightly down 11-cents or 0.29%.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple passed 20 million iPods sold milestone in early June – June 24, 2005
Creative Technology shares slide to lowest mark in almost two years – May 18, 2005
Apple squeezes and Creative’s profit plunges 72-percent – April 23, 2005
Apple iPod pressure forces Creative to drop prices on music players – March 01, 2005
Creative’s self-declared ‘MP3 player war’ against Apple isn’t going very well – January 20, 2005
Creative CEO: Apple iPod shuffle ‘a big let-down, worse than the cheapest Chinese player’ – January 12, 2005
Creative declares ‘war’ on Apple iPod, shoots for 40% market share of MP3 players – December 21, 2004
Creative Technology declares ‘MP3 War’ against market-dominating Apple iPod – November 17, 2004
Mossberg: Dell, Rio, Creative ‘iPod mini killers’ lag badly behind Apple iPod mini – October 27, 2004
Creative pushes to become ‘Pepsi’ to Apple’s ‘Coke’ in digital music player market – August 07, 2004
“If Creative music player sales are soft it infers that Apple sales are soft,” said Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf. –
do you really want to trust an ‘analyst’ that doesn’t even know the difference between ‘infer’ and ‘imply’?
Bad Charles – go back to school….
‘If Creative music player sales are soft it infers that Apple sales are soft,’ said Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf.”
Right, don’t actually look at the numbers.
“Early on Monday Creative Technology Ltd., a rival digital music player maker cut its sales outlook for the current quarter to 50 percent growth”
Still, 50% growth is something that any company would kill for
Just trying to create an appl buying opportunity in advance of this weeks announcements…
Charles needs to review the meaning of the word “infer”. The word “imply” would have been more appropriate. And no, poor sales of a below-average player do not imply that sales of a superior player are down, too. From this, we can infer that Charles’ perspective of the music player market is a bit confused.
‘If Creative music player sales are soft it infers that Apple sales are soft,’ said Needham & Co. analyst Charles Wolf.”
——–
And the Moron of the Week award goes to Charles Wolf. And not just because of the infer/imply gaffe. Creative’s sales numbers are soft because its product blows and someone is kicking its ass. Who could that be? C’mon, Charles, even you can get it. Begins with an “A”…
Creative’s sales on their inferior products are down and somehow this is Apple’s problem? Brilliant…
50% increase of “a little” is still “a little”.
50% increase of “a little” is still “a little”.
mathematically speaking, that converts it from a little to 50% bigger
I’m sorry, when does Creative sales being soft imply Apple sales are soft? I hate stock market analyst, they say the stupidest things.
the iPod has not mastered the WMA conversion process which ultimately dominate all media files. Apple users have no regard for DRM, which Steve Ballmer has stated previously.
The iPod fad is on 14 minutes and 30 seconds of their 15 minutes of fame.
the future is a network media player that takes advantage of .NET and the more reliable Windows Media.
The man’s a wanker.
But…50% increase of nothing is still nothing
What what you are saying. The same people who clamor that Apple is doing great because of 74% sales growth while the remaining PC retail segment grew 6% are the same that say “50% of a little [Real’s market share] is still a little”.
As an AAPL owner, and Mac user, I find this double sided. I support Apple too, but when 6% of your market share is still bigger than 74% of mine, I would rather have yours.
I stand by my assertion that while Apple’s policy is to underpromise and over deliver on sales of DMP, Creative went the other way, hoping that by providing agressive sales guidance, Analysts and the DMP consumers would see Creative as viable and reward them with sales and increased stock valuations. That didn’t work out so well for Creative and sadly, the company that brought sound to the masses with the Creative Labs SoundBlaster, is not able to find a foothold in the portable audio marketplace.
My magic word is “while” like it’s gonna take a “while” to unseat Apple’s DMP dominance.
Sputnik,
You slay me, man – it’s sad that you’ll get a load of abuse now from people who don’t understand either irony or satire.
(This post mistakenly appeared in a different thread. It now appears in the thread previously intended. We apologize for the inconvenience.)
Sputnik, dude! Where’s stantheman. eh? Y’all should get together here and do an Abott & Costello routine. Maybe something like:
stantheman: Who’s on first.
sputnik: .Net technology!
stabtheman: No, Who’s on first!
sputnik: What?
stabtheman: Second base!
It would be funny. Yes it would. For about five minutes, then it’d be yesterday’s comedy and you’ll have to comeup with something along the lines of Chico and The Man, but that should be second nature to you guys!
ummm…
Creative selling less than expected means Apple is too?
Rephrasing other posts explicitly:
Could be those NOT buying Creative ARE buying Apple iPods, no?
Maybe that means INCREASED iPod sales for Apple?
just a thought….
Oh, fer… That’s not Sputnik. Sputnik puts the copyright symbol at the end of his posts. Sputnik isn’t so transparently stupid-on-purpose. I cannot believe how clueless some readers are around here.
But…50% increase of nothing is still nothing
Are you talking about your personal experience with a penis enlargment tool ?
lol
LordRobin,
Agree 100%. Sputnik is not THAT dumb.
©
It’s a shame that Apple’s getting punished (stock-wise) when they are expected to have increasing sales quarter to quarter, just because some ‘war’-driven, also-ran competitor is expected to have lower sales.
I think Creative should give up the war and just make sound cards.
Creative selling less than expected means Apple is too?
—
Funny, huh?
Oh.. damn, I forgot.. THEY’RE COMPETITORS!
To infer is nothing but by virtue of one proposition laid down as true, to draw in another as true.
–Locke.
Realmoney says just the opposite so it’s all a guessing game. Why don’t the shares go up with all of the positive news with marketshare gains.
Infer:
1. To conclude from evidence or premises.
2. To reason from circumstance; surmise: We can infer that his motive in publishing the diary was less than honorable.
3. To lead to as a consequence or conclusion: “Socrates argued that a statue inferred the existence of a sculptor” (Academy).
4. To hint; imply.