| View this article at: http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/08/01/23/amtech.upgrade.ipods/ |
Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 10:30am
AmTech: Apple must upgrade iPods |
Apple must substantially upgrade its iPods in order to rescue sales, says Shaw Wu of American Technology Research. While revenue growth from iPods was 17 percent in the last quarter, the fastest of the past four, the company only sold approximately 22 million iPods, when consensus views were predicting 24 to 25 million. This likewise represents a mere 5 percent growth year-over-year, in spite of the fact that Apple recently made major changes by introducing the Touch and adding video to the Nano.The solution, Wu suggests, is to substantially improve the value of iPods, as they may be facing cannibalization from cellphones, which are increasingly supportive of at least basic media player functions. A recent study indicated that phones are used for as much of 83 of mobile music listening in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The damage may be offset for Apple by high iPhone sales, which have doubled sequentially to 2.3 million. |