“Zune sales tumbled 54 percent last quarter. Microsoft, though, says the drop was expected,” Joseph Tartakoff reports for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“The sales drop was particularly unnerving because it did not seem to jibe with what Microsoft executives had said about the Zune’s holiday sales. For instance, when I asked Robbie Bach, the president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, earlier this month how the Zune performed over the holidays, he said repeatedly that sales were ‘fine,'” Tartakoff reports. “‘Truthfully that category, Apple and us, didn’t grow like it did last year,’ Bach said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas several weeks ago. ‘But Zune did fine. Right about our expectations and we feel pretty good about the direction that’s going.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Truthfully, for real this time, Apple did grow in iPod sales. Last quarter, Apple sold 22.727 million iPods and the company’s iPod+iTunes platform generated $4.382 billion. More info in our next take below. And, anyone who “feels pretty good about the direction Zune’s going” must be an extreme skier.
Tartakoff continues, “In an interview Monday, Adam Sohn, the Zune’s director of marketing, said several factors had contributed to the large drop in Zune sales. ‘Some of them are environmental,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows that the economy is not what it was a year ago and that is hurting some folks. We are in a position where the category is also shrinking. So I think those are things that affected everybody’s sales, including Apple.'”
Tartakoff reports, “Apple posted a 16 percent drop in iPod sales.”
MacDailyNews Take: Unfortunately for Seattle Post-Intelligencer readers, Joey Tartarsauce is only telling only part of the story, which basically ends up being a lie due to omission. While Apple’s iPod revenue was down 16% YOY, unit sales actually increased 3% YOY. Factor in the iPhone (which contains an iPod and naturally cannibalizes some iPod sales) and you’ll clearly see that Apple’s sales in the portable media player market are increasing YOY both in unit sales and revenue. Regardless of the publication’s close proximity to Microsoft’s headquarters, Seattle P-I readers should expect and demand thorough coverage untainted with bias and/or incompetence. Email: and/or
Tartakoff continues, “Sohn also once again insisted that the company was not giving up on Zune hardware. ‘Every time anything comes up, there is a set of people who pull a Chicken Little and say, ‘The Sky is Falling. Zune is dead,” he said. ‘The fact is we are on track to deliver the next generation of Zune innovation in software and hardware. The planning is fast and furious. We will deliver progress this calendar year.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We love a good running joke as much as anybody, except maybe Microsoft.
