iPod flourishing, gaining market share

MacNN ^ | 04/25/2006

[Panerai]

PiperJaffray senior analyst Gene Munster today maintained an "outperform" rating on Apple shares with a price target of $99, following an examination of data from his Amazon Top Seller list ratings. Apple's iPod is flourishing on the lists for portable MP3 players and all electronics, holding all 10 spots in the top 10. The analyst believes that Apple's iPod is still gaining market share, noting the device's recent rise to 77.9 percent in March, up from 76.8 percent in February. "We believe the increase is noteworthy given that the last time we recorded 10 iPods in the Top 10 occurred on September 9th, 2005, prior to the holiday shopping season," Munster noted. The number of Macs in the Top 10 and Top 20 decreased to eight and nine, from nine and 11, respectively. "The eight in the Top 10 remains at the upper end of all observations since we began tracking the Top Sellers," Munster wrote.

"For a point of reference, there were five Macs in the Top 10 one year ago. We believe that increase is primarily due to the recent launch of the new Intel=based iMac and MacBook Pros."

Munster also noted the steadily increasing internet traffic to Apple's website, indicating a growing interest in the company and its products.

"Apple.com has had a significant increase in 'reach' over the past quarter, which we believe is mainly the result of Apple's new product launches at Macworld on January 10th," Munster told clients in a his research report. "Apple's three-month average traffic rank of 45 on April 20th is the best value that we have observed for apple.com since we've tracked the Alexa data."

Alexa.com is a Web-based information provider that tracks statistics for nearly every main domain name in existence, and is particularly useful for identifying which websites are important to surfers. The "reach" rating signifies the number of users of a site, and Alexa.com expresses this statistic as the number of users per million.

"Apple's 3-month average reach of 13,255,000 on April 20th is the second best value that has been observed (high was on 13,300,000 on March 1st)," the analyst added. "While we realize Web 'traffic rankings' and 'reach' are not perfect measures of actual sales, we believe they are a decent indicator of overall mindshare."

PiperJaffray believes Apple will have shipped more than 85 million iPods by the end of 2006, providing Apple with a greater scope of awareness for various products, or a "halo effect." The company announced in its March quarter conference call that it had shipped 50 million iPods through the end of March 2005.

[Swordmaker]

What about when you download it from P2P sites? FREE

Until you get slapped with that RIAA suit.

[Echo Talon]

I don't own an mp3 player, thank goodness im not that much into music

[gondramB]

>>Bzzzt. Wrong. You can burn *any* iTunes song to an MP3 or Audio CD. Then you can play it on anything.

Again, Apple lets you own your music. Surprise!<<

Hmmm I must have missed the output from DRMed to MP3 choice in ITunes.

I know you can redigitize Itunes into MP3 but all the methods I am aware of involve breaking the ITunes agreement and thus the law.

[antiRepublicrat]

What exactly are the limitations of DRM?

DRM is a necessary evil for now, as the labels wouldn't have allowed online sales if not for it. Even with DRM Jobs had to drag the RIAA kicking and screaming into realistic online sales.

You probably don't notice Apple's DRM because it is loose enough to encompass most of the things iPod owners would want to do with their music. You can copy your music to any number of iPods, stream it to up to five computers on your network simultaneously and burn unlimited CDs (although one play list can only be burned seven times before you have to change it to burn again).

You'll really only notice it if you use something other than an iPod, or a player other than iTunes (although you had to use iTunes to buy the music in the first place).

[antiRepublicrat]

It looks better if you go longer term.

[Spktyr]

Um, that's not exactly an all-in-one device. An AIO would be something like a phone/camera/pda/mp3/video player. Those are already on the market and they're not selling all that well.

[Spktyr]

P2P = Free, but I-L-L-E-G-A-L.

[Echo Talon]

soon as the technology catches up thats where its going. With data sticks reaching 4GB's its inevitable. Imagine one of these with a removable media capability(data sticks) that are self contained in the unit. should be pretty cool.

CORSAIR Voyager 4GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) - Retail $104.99

[Spktyr]

From my PowerBook running iTunes (not my desktop Mac w/ the burner):

[Spktyr]

Yet the iPod shuffle's sales doesn't seem to be affected.

It's not just about the iPod hardware. It's about the seamless end to end experience that you get with iTunes and the iPod that give Apple the advantage. Nobody's been able to duplicate that yet.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

I have been disappointed in their video offerings.

[Echo Talon]

It's not just about the iPod hardware. It's about the seamless end to end experience that you get with iTunes and the iPod that give Apple the advantage.

can it also clean my toilet and take pictures of babes on the beach? :)

[Spktyr]

No, but you shouldn't discount it. Offering a seamless purchase and ownership experience is part of how Toyota got Lexus to be a dominant player in the luxury car market. It's not just the hardware, it's the buying experience, too!

GM and Microsoft (and Napster, Sony, etc., etc.) have yet to learn this. Apple obviously did.

Oh, I don't hear any comments from you about Sony's ATRAC. Why is that, hm?

[Echo Talon]

LOL! you sound like an Apple salesman! WTF! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Here's a hint - all-in-one devices rarely do any of their tasks well and people usually hate them. The phone-as-camera still hasn't made a dent in digicam sales, and the phone-as-music player hasn't yet (and probably won't) make a dent in *any* over-$50 MP3 player sales.

Yes but if you're a hockey player and the coach has just chewed the team out for not playing well, it is so handy to be able to on demand download an inspirational hockey song on your cell phone.......

My apologies if you haven't seen the ad that I am lampooning..........

[Spktyr]

No, but I've studied business - and using the Leisure Suit Larry approach to selling your product isn't going to work any more.

Besides, criticism of the iPod or other music players from someone who doesn't even own one is worth a laugh in and of itself.

Still waiting for you to explain why you worship Sony and don't mention ATRAC or how none of their music players until very very recently supported MP3 at all....

[Spktyr]

Yeah, that silly vCast commercial from Verizon?

Yeah - imagine how happy he'll be when he realizes he spent $5 to get that stupid song. Ooops.

[Echo Talon]

First of all, I had no idea that Sony had a standard, if you read all the posts you would have noticed that, I said Sony or someone will develop a standard that will work on multiple machines, IE Nextel, Motorola, Sony etc. Someone can copy iTunes unless you believe in monopolies

Have you changed the batteries in your Ipod lately?

[Spktyr]

No, but I changed the battery in a friend's first generation iPod last week. Took me all of 10 minutes.

Changed the battery in your Palm PDA lately?

And iTunes is copyrighted and patented. Good luck coming up with an exact copy - plus nobody else in the market has the combination of control over the hardware plus the software design expertise to do this. Maybe Microsoft's vaporware MP3/WMA player will, but I really, really doubt it'll work as well as the tight integration of iTunes and iPod, and that's what matters.

Out of curiosity, you drive something like a Chevrolet or Ford, don't you?

[Echo Talon]

Yes, I drive an American made car.