“Credit Suisse maintained an “outperform’ rating on Apple Computer… ‘We believe Apple is still in the early stages of its product expansion and that the company can grow its iPod units at least 20% for the foreseeable future,’ wrote analyst Robert Semple, in report sent to clients Tuesday,” Peter Kang reports for Forbes. “The analyst’s prediction comes from what he sees as the low penetration rate of the iPod, estimated at about 10% of PC users, or an “active installed base” of about 40 million units worldwide. One region looking ripe for growth is Europe, which has an estimated penetration rate of 7.1% compared with 15.5% for the United States, according to Credit Suisse.”
Kang reports, “In addition, customers appear to be replacing their iPods with new models quicker; Semple estimates the current ‘lifecycle’ of the iPod at approximately 1.5 years, down from two years. The Credit Suisse analyst compared the current pace of iPod shipments to that of the Sony Walkman and Discman portable music players. ‘We believe that over time Apple’s iPod can easily exceed Sony’s 309 million cumulative Walkman and Discman shipments,’ he said. ‘For comparison, it took Sony over 10 years to sell 50 million Walkmans, while Apple reached the same milestone in half the time despite lower market share and stiffer competition.'”
Full article here.
Advertisements:
• Introducing the super-fast, blogging, podcasting, do-everything-out-of-the-box MacBook. Starting at just $1099
• Get the new iMac with Intel Core Duo for as low as $31 A MONTH with Free shipping!
• Get the MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo for as low as $47 A MONTH with Free Shipping!
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
Related articles:
Apple Euro boss talks iPod: ‘We are only at the very beginning of something really big’ – October 16, 2004
Stiffer competition? Oh, you mean like iRiver stiff.
He’s talking about 20% year over year growth — i.e., compounding.
That would equate to 44% over 2 years and almost 73% over 3 years. That’s significant!
Go iPod & Go AAPL!
How much longer is iTunes gonna be called iTunes? It now manages music, video, calendars, contacts and now this Nike stuff.
M.X.N.T.4.1: The name iTunes may be dated, but I don’t think that it’s holding back the growth and expansion of any aspect of the service or of iPod sales. Sounds better than iMedia, too.
Finally an article that makes sense. Apple is still selling iPods at a rate higher than the previous quarters last year. That’s impressive!
All this talk of stalling and sales won’t meet expectations, jeez, it’s selling really well.
8 million units in one of the slowest business quarters this year, man so many articles are really tough on Apple.
don´t you wish this was discussing apple computers?
“Semple estimates the current ‘lifecycle’ of the iPod at approximately 1.5 years, down from two years. “
Is that how long the ipOd battery is lasting – 1.5 years? so instead on paying to get a new battery they buy a new ipod???
Even though they are talking about iPods and not Macs, don’t worry. The success of the iPod will inevitably pull the Mac along with it — actually, it already has – I bought my first Mac in November 2004 after using an iPod for 4 months. I now have 6 Macs in the house and 6 iPods. Five of the Macs were purchased from Apple and one from eBay. We dropped Windows XP in 2004 and have never looked back.
Bonkers for Mac, I wasn’t implying that iTunes was holding growth back – it was more of a general query since if the iPod is gonna grow and add more functionality then iTunes is gonna become increasingly inaccurate as a name. I get the feeling we may keep seeing all these features (albeit small ones) shoe-horned into iTunes and it could become increasingly cluttered. I also feel that part of the reason for this will be to accomodate windows users who would probably be less likely to install multiple apps. I dunno. Personally I liked the calendar/contacts stuff when it was in iSync, sure it meant using two apps but it at least made sense.
M.X.N.T.4.1 wrote, “I also feel that part of the reason for this will be to accomodate windows users who would probably be less likely to install multiple apps.”
Interesting point — perhaps you’re right.
I agree with you MacMan. I used Mac’s at home and work in the 80’s and early 90’s until Windows 95. Then in late 2004 I was looking to replace my PC laptop and decided to get a iMac instead along with with four iPods for the family, two mini’s for my kids a 40g Photo iPod for my wife and a 20g U2 iPod for myself. Since then I have bought a Mac Mini for one kid and a iBook for the kid in college. Bought a nano when my oldest lost her mini. Now my wife want a new Macbook.
I have a Dull at work but my home network is all Mac!
Too bad Nike makes crappy shoes.
I bought a pair of Nikes and they fell apart in less than a month. No, I did not wear them excessively. They were just made from poor quality material.
So never again for Nike.
MacMan,
That’s an incredible testimony!
LinuxGuy…Lol, that was awesome!
HE was first.
$200 odd for somehing that’ll last 1.5 years! No thanks.
Apple is already losing the market though it just hasn’t become apparent yet. In western Canada, Telus advertises music for it’s phones, Motorola announces their Q phone which can download and play music and list goes on…
Forget about Creative, Sans or Sony…it’s all those other devices which are quickly aquiring the capacity to do what an iPod does except it’s also a PIM, camera and a phone and they can connect to one music service or another. And while Apple’s momentum is still up, all of these different devices are circling and chipping away incrementally though it hasn’t become noticeable yet. I’d rather buy a Q phone than an iPod.
They need to license now or in two or three years Apple’s dominance will suddenly evaporate and everyone will be sitting around wondering what happened.