“A severe shortage of Apple’s iPod is frustrating resellers as they struggle to meet consumer demand this Christmas,” Kate Palmer reports for New Zealand Reseller News. “‘The queue is getting longer and longer so the message to consumers is buy now and don’t delay,’ says Steve Ford, general manager Renaissance Apple division. Ford says supplies for the video-capable 30GB and 60GB iPods are good but admits his company is desperately trying to fulfil demand for the iPod nano. ‘We’re fighting as hard as we can. I’m expecting some product to come through in the next week but I can’t make any promises after that.'”
Palmer reports, “New Zealand stock is supplied from Australia — also facing a drastic shortage. Ford says Apple didn’t give resellers any prior warning when launching its newest iPod range in October and that has contributed to the shortage. ‘The main factor is this huge demand. Last quarter Apple sold three times as many iPods as it did during Christmas 2004,’ he says. And although Ford is issuing no apologies for the situation he does thank the channel for an outstanding year.”
“Set to benefit from the shortage is rival MP3 maker Creative,” Palmer reports. “Victor Ho, Morning Star group product manager, says Creative is benefiting from the situation to a certain degree. ‘No doubt about it, this is going to be an MP3 Christmas. The real growth started about six months ago and we have absolutely no stock issues,’ he says.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “Bruce” for the link.]
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Imagine that, Creative has “absolutely no stock issues.” Those poor bastards ought to change the company’s name from “Creative” to “Scavenge.” Imagine getting a lump of Creative in your stocking in lieu of an iPod for Christmas? We see the same packages of Creative product on store shelves week after week. The only thing that changes seems to be the amount of dust on them. How many Creative mistakes will be returned worldwide and replaced with iPods in the days after Christmas this year?
Bloody Apple. My kids are already wanting to trade up after just a year with the Mini. What are they doing to us!
If you take away the silly marketing and hype machine, the ipod fall short of other mp3 player offerings. Apple is so bad at inventory management,
That people will say forget about the ipod and discover the competition is a much better deal. It’s like the HALO effect of apple being so inneficient that the more competent companies will finally get the paytime and exposure they need to overturn the iPod demon.
Hey Bill, when have you ever been right on anything? Maybe you should make a docking standard. Hahaha!
Bill — Your wife is calling. Get back in there with the kids, or she won’t give you any more of the only p-ssy you’ve ever had in your life.
Oh, and by the way, remember something: Your house was designed on a Mac. I know you live with that fact every . . . single . . . day . . . !
Mwaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
its not hard to have surplus supply of something people dont want……
i recently spoke to my local nz reseller and they said there was something like 50,000 iPod nanos on back order in NZ!!!!!
This is true. We get dozens of calls every day from customers wanting Nanos. We thought we should get a recorded announcement to incoming callers, along these lines:
“…if you are calling to enquire about iPod Nanos, sorry, we have no stock and are not expecting any to arrive before christmas. If your call is about other items, please press 0 to speak to a customer services agent…”
OK, I know this may sound like heresy but there are are outlets in Australia that have plenty of stock…but they’re not your usual Apple resellers. The large chains like Mega Mart, K-Mart, David Jones etc. all have plenty of stock. I suggest Kiwi users try this option as well. As for Creative having plenty of stock well there’s a term for that…it’s called excess inventory.