“Apple is planning a ‘significant redesign’ of the iPod to counter slowing sales of the digital music player, according to reports. Industry weblogs, which in the past have tended to accurately predict Apple’s development plans, say a new player will be released this autumn and could replace the current iPod nano,” Rhys Blakely reports for The London Times. “Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple Computer, last week dismissed claims that the company was facing a growth slowdown, insisting that a sharp drop in sales of the iPod was ‘not a cause for concern.’ Mr Jobs blamed a drop in sales of the music devices from 14 million to 8.5 million on the exceptionally strong demand during the holiday season. He said he remained optimistic about the growth prospects for the iPod, adding: ‘To be honest, nobody has ever sold 8.5 million music players in a quarter.'”
“However, the fall, during Apple’s fiscal second quarter, marks dragged sales figures about one million short of what Wall Street had expected. Analysts said the drop in iPod sales, which was accompanied by a forecast that was below expectations, signalled that the company was no longer set to forge ahead at the same pace. Significantly, Apple has not recently introduced new versions of the iPod to help to lift sales. Meanwhile several rival products have come on to the market. Shipments of Apple Macintosh computers also fell in the period to 1.1 million, down from 1.25 million during the holiday period,” Blakely reports.
Full article here.
Today’s poorly conceived hit-piece brought to you by Rhys Blakely and the fine folks at The London Times who can’t seem to figure out that there is no “second Christmas” in March. For “several rival products” that “have come on to the market” to have affected iPod sales, wouldn’t such products have to have actually sold some units in quantity? No such evidence is provided by Blakely. Bad form, Rhys. Blakely and his editors also can’t fathom why people would decide wait a bit to buy certain Intel-based Macs until they are actually available for sale. They’ve registered a “Thurrott” on the Obtuse Scale (see related article). Blakely’s article is just a stupid waste of time, paper, ink, bandwidth, and electrons. And, as quoted, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is wrong. One company has sold at least 8.5 million music players in a quarter: Apple has done it two quarters in a row, with many more to come.
As for the rumored “iPod redesign,” please name a year since the iPod was introduced when Apple didn’t redesign at least one iPod model.
Apple shipped 1,112,000 Macintosh computers and 8,526,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 4 percent growth in Macs and 61 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter.
[UPDATE: 11:08am EDT: Added Mac and iPod shipment and growth numbers to end of Take.]
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Related articles:
RUMOR: iPod nano featuring ‘significant internal redesign’ due fall 2006 – April 25, 2006
Thurrott: It’s starting to look like Apple’s iPod and Mac sales are leveling out – April 21, 2006
Oooooh! and others:
There is a big difference between “The Times”, “Los Angeles Times” and “The New York Times”: The Times is called “The Times”, the others have the name in their city in the title printed in big letters on the front page.
Just because those papers have their name in the title, doesn’t mean The Times automatically should be “The London Times”. Why not just call it what it says in huge letters at the top of the front page: “The Times”.
“There’s a battle (in)side
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the Times they are a-changin'”
@Mike from iPod news – You are confused. To own and use a Walkman all you needed was a Walkman and music CD or cassette.
With an iPod to download music one also needs a computer.
To download music from iTunes store one needs:
– computer
– fast internet connection
– credit card
How many people you think have that? A fraction of as many that qualified to own and operate a Walkman.
Once the Apple phone comes out – if ever – this will increase apple sales, but cut into iPod sales.
Flaccus:
What an asinine, ridiculous thing to say. What’s your point asshole?
Until Apple can figure out how one can get music on their iPod without also having a big buck computer, then worldwide iPod sales will be limited.
Conrad, in case you haven’t noticed, you can load your iPod with Mp3s from either Windows or Mac computers. All you need is the free iTunes program (heck, to be totally accurate, you don’t even need that!). And Conrad, have you checked the price of used G4s on Ebay lately? Or used Windows boxes? You can get music to your iPod cheaply. It seems that only you haven’t figured out how. Why not?
MDN magic word: Lead. As in “Conrad must have eaten lead at an early age.”
“…a Thurrott on the obtuse scale…”
Ha!
Actually, I propose that we use “Thurrotts” as the unit of ob-tuse-ity on a scale, which should probably be logrithmic to reflect the extrordinary range of ob-energy to which macophiles are exposed.
Example: Dopey Brit presses enter key before actually researching, 2.4 on the T scale.
Dvorak says something like “Really, Apple just needs to come over and install wi-fi in my colon, or they might as well cash it in” 8.5 T
You get the idea…
That’s bullshit Pog. Only people in the UK just call it ‘The Times’. Virtually every country in the anglosphere has a ‘Times’. If you say ‘did you see the Times today?’ in Cork, it’s the Irish Times, anywhere in the eastern US, it’s the New York Times… and so on.
@ Getdafacts>
Following on from Brainless Genius, let’s analyse the reality.
Some 50 million iPods have been sold to date with, arguably, a cumulative capacity of approximately 75 billion tracks or thereabouts.
Apple’s iTMS has sold approximately 1.15 billion tracks from iTMS.
Logic dictates that the other 74 billion tracks must have come from somewhere else, or that people are buying multiple iPods as a) their existing unit starts to fail or b) they wish to keep up with enhanced functionality.
Both of these scenarios mean that Apple will, over time, exceed the 300 million unit sales of Sony’s Walkman rather than fall short: to keep a Walkman alive for five years and to keep abreast of current technology meant feeding it with Duracells and treating it gently.
With the iPod, you’ll replace it every three years which means that the 8 million people who bought one last quarter will be back at the well in another 36 months.
Pog – spot on.
to all our fellows across the pond, still struggling to distinguish between the newspapers, what they are called and where they are from, get some “time” in…
MW : ‘saw’ as in veni vidi vici
the iphone rules.
http://www.cashpotatos.com