Analyst says iPod shipments on track...

Apple's iPod sales should be strong in the March quarter, despite reports to contrary. Analyst firm Piper Jaffray cautioned that that Apple investors should be wary of recent supplier news suggesting a negative outlook for iPod sales and reiterated its "outperfom" rating on Apple stock with a price target of $103, according to Forbes. Last week Goldman Sachs warned that shipments for iPods may drop at least one million units in the first half of 2006, despite positive reports of strong iPod sales from other anlaysts. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster said he also expects strong iPod sales: "Our preliminary analysis of iPod unit shipment data from NPD leads us to believe that Apple is on track to meet or slightly exceed our iPod unit assumptions and be primarily in line with Street numbers," wrote analyst Gene Munster in a research note today.

New SanDisk player to take on iPod nano

A USA Today interview with SanDisk CEO Eli Harari talks about the company's pending release of a new player to take on Apple in the flash player market. SanDisk, which is currently second with 10 percent marketshare, is trying to leverage its lower flash memory costs and its 150,000 retail locations: "This month, we're introducing a new player, the Sansa e200, and it's superb. We feel it's far better designed than Apple's Nano, which also uses flash memory instead of a hard drive to store the music. Our new Sansa is priced attractively and has many more features than the Nano. You can view pictures and videos on our unit. We have FM radio, voice recording, a slot to add extra memory from a card, and a removable battery. The Nano doesn't have those. You have to ship the unit back to Apple if you have a problem with the battery."