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Merrill Lynch projects shipments of 4 million iPods

post #1 of 22
2/23/05 at 11:18am
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In a research note released to clients on Wednesday, Merrill Lynch analyst, Steve Milunovich, said his firm expects Apple to ship 1 million shuffles and about 3 million iPods this quarter, for a total of 4 million units. "Updating the iPod mini should help iPod units decline only 35% sequentially from 4.6 million to 3 million," the analyst said. Milunovich also voiced his belief that the 60GB iPod photo price was slashed by 25%, due to less than spectacular demand since its October debut. Merrill Lynch reiterated its 'Buy' rating on Apple with a price objective of $102 per share.
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post #2 of 22
2/23/05 at 11:30am
I predict they will sell all the iPods they produce. My brother (who is a Windows user) just purchased a Creative Labs Zen Micro (5GB) when he couldn't find any iPod minis in stores.

It's a pretty neat player, nice interface and all. I just wish Apple could get more 'pods in stores and re-stock at a faster pace so that they don't keep losing sales in cases like the one I just mentioned.
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post #3 of 22
2/23/05 at 11:41am
How could demand possibly be "spectacular" for a top-end 15,000-song player when compared to lower-end mainstream 1,000 to 5,000-song players?

And how could any product NOT drop in price after six months? And not by THAT much--they took out some Photo accessories like the A/V cable.

I'm sure plenty of companies would have killed to have high-end player sales to match Apple's sales of the first Photo models.

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post #4 of 22
2/23/05 at 11:45am
Quote:
Originally posted by monkeyastronaut
I predict they will sell all the iPods they produce. My brother (who is a Windows user) just purchased a Creative Labs Zen Micro (5GB) when he couldn't find any iPod minis in stores.

It's a pretty neat player, nice interface and all. I just wish Apple could get more 'pods in stores and re-stock at a faster pace so that they don't keep losing sales in cases like the one I just mentioned.

it doesn't seem like they are losing many sales at all. and if so, it's no where near enough to hurt them. As it is, I've been very impressed by Apple's ability to produce enough iPods.
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post #5 of 22
2/23/05 at 12:46pm
You know it's really hard to comprehend what's going on here. Here's some perspective. At Macworld last month, Jobs held up what was the 10 millionth iPod. 10 million iPods!!! As a comparison, only 3 million TiVo units have been shipped (not that they compete in anyway).

So as big and popular as the iPod has been during the past couple of years, this quarter alone will add another 4 million, or even if sales remain flat, 16 million for this year alone for a total of 26 million iPods.

And forget the halo effect, there's a huge snowball effect. People buying the iPod, then buying songs from iTMS, buying a Mac mini, Airport, Airport Express, Tiger, iLife, etc...

Apple has *never* been so well poised for skyrocketing success.
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post #6 of 22
2/23/05 at 3:11pm
Quote:
Originally posted by applenut
it doesn't seem like they are losing many sales at all. and if so, it's no where near enough to hurt them. As it is, I've been very impressed by Apple's ability to produce enough iPods.

It's still a lost sale, even if you had run out of stock. When in large masses, you're missing out on a lot of clients and their money.

It might not seem like a big deal, but this same incident happens in many small towns like the ones where I do my shopping and it means lost sales for Apple.
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post #7 of 22
2/23/05 at 3:28pm
It's viral...
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To infinity and beyond!
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post #8 of 22
2/23/05 at 4:15pm
Quote:
Originally posted by monkeyastronaut
It's still a lost sale, even if you had run out of stock. When in large masses, you're missing out on a lot of clients and their money.

It might not seem like a big deal, but this same incident happens in many small towns like the ones where I do my shopping and it means lost sales for Apple.

if apple is selling as many as they can make it is not hurting them. they are just missing oppurtunity. as it is, i think its extremely rare to walk into a store and plan to buy something that costs several hundred dollars and instead purchase something you didnt want because they didnt have it.
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post #9 of 22
2/23/05 at 4:36pm
Quote:
Originally posted by applenut
if apple is selling as many as they can make it is not hurting them. they are just missing oppurtunity. as it is, i think its extremely rare to walk into a store and plan to buy something that costs several hundred dollars and instead purchase something you didnt want because they didnt have it.

shuffles and iPod minis are cheap enough to do that though. Also look at Christmas demand. People couldn't get iPods for their children - they had to get something else!
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post #10 of 22
2/23/05 at 4:54pm
Quote:
Originally posted by applenut
if apple is selling as many as they can make it is not hurting them. they are just missing oppurtunity. as it is, i think its extremely rare to walk into a store and plan to buy something that costs several hundred dollars and instead purchase something you didnt want because they didnt have it.

iPods no longer fall into the "several hundred dollars" category (the player itself has become pretty affordable, $249 is easy to swallow if you know how to save). And still, you can get what you want (an mp3 player) without getting an iPod and still get a pretty good deal. It's just that Mac fanboys like you and I would rather wait for an iPod to become available rather than purchasing something else. But for Wintel users like my brother, it made sense purchasing something else when Apple failed to have sufficient stock. It was one lost sale for Apple, one less iPod user. One less iTunes music store customer, and tens or maybe hundreds of potential dollars in accesories. It DOES hurt Apple and their accessory market.
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post #11 of 22
2/23/05 at 5:12pm
Quote:
Originally posted by monkeyastronaut
iPods no longer fall into the "several hundred dollars" category (the player itself has become pretty affordable, $249 is easy to swallow if you know how to save). And still, you can get what you want (an mp3 player) without getting an iPod and still get a pretty good deal. It's just that Mac fanboys like you and I would rather wait for an iPod to become available rather than purchasing something else. But for Wintel users like my brother, it made sense purchasing something else when Apple failed to have sufficient stock. It was one lost sale for Apple, one less iPod user. One less iTunes music store customer, and tens or maybe hundreds of potential dollars in accesories. It DOES hurt Apple and their accessory market.

Well, if apple's market-share numbers start dropping, I'd say it's something to worry about.

Until then, meh.
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post #12 of 22
2/23/05 at 5:24pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Flounder
Well, if apple's market-share numbers start dropping, I'd say it's something to worry about.

Until then, meh.

I'm glad you don't run Apple. Jobs is concerned about these lost customers. Every customer who doesn't buy an iPod because it is not available is a potential Mac switcher - Jobs wants everyone to have an iPod. He's doing everything he can to improve supply and quite right too. You can't shrug off supply issues. I don't shop with certain online sellers cos they're crap at delivery, Apple being one of them, PCWorld being another. Now if Apple products take weeks to ship that's not good enough. Apple need to address it.
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post #13 of 22
2/23/05 at 6:39pm
Quote:
Originally posted by monkeyastronaut
iPods no longer fall into the "several hundred dollars" category (the player itself has become pretty affordable, $249 is easy to swallow if you know how to save). And still, you can get what you want (an mp3 player) without getting an iPod and still get a pretty good deal. It's just that Mac fanboys like you and I would rather wait for an iPod to become available rather than purchasing something else. But for Wintel users like my brother, it made sense purchasing something else when Apple failed to have sufficient stock. It was one lost sale for Apple, one less iPod user. One less iTunes music store customer, and tens or maybe hundreds of potential dollars in accesories. It DOES hurt Apple and their accessory market.

its better to be slightly below demand than it is to exceed demand.

right now, your brother means nothing to apple's bottomline and ipod's success. perhaps its a cocky view, but when you have 90% of the market you can be cocky, look at Microsoft all these years.
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post #14 of 22
2/24/05 at 4:26am
Quote:
Originally posted by applenut
its better to be slightly below demand than it is to exceed demand.

right now, your brother means nothing to apple's bottomline and ipod's success. perhaps its a cocky view, but when you have 90% of the market you can be cocky, look at Microsoft all these years.

And Microsoft is doing badly. Apple need to worry but they don' want to go over, that's fair enough. but they can't just say the customers don't matter. They've got to improve the features so people wont buy another MP3 player.
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post #15 of 22
2/24/05 at 5:31am
I hope they don't improve the features...
But instead, lower costs, decrease size, and extend battery life.

Ever wish your bathroom sink had more features?
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post #16 of 22
2/24/05 at 6:13am
Quote:
Originally posted by dfiler
I hope they don't improve the features...
But instead, lower costs, decrease size, and extend battery life.

Ever wish your bathroom sink had more features?

improving features doesn't mean more features! Improving features means size, battery and cost as you said. Innovative features would be new!! Some new features are needed, however, like bigger capacity, iPods are like computers the technology improves and the updates need to reflect that. I would also like to see FireWire 800 support. But apart from that the iPod needs to play music, and the improvements to aid that would be software related.
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post #17 of 22
2/24/05 at 10:50am
Quote:
Originally posted by MacCrazy
improving features doesn't mean more features! Improving features means size, battery and cost as you said. Innovative features would be new!! Some new features are needed, however, like bigger capacity, iPods are like computers the technology improves and the updates need to reflect that. I would also like to see FireWire 800 support. But apart from that the iPod needs to play music, and the improvements to aid that would be software related.

I believe they just did that yesterday....correct?

And what would Firewire 800 support give you? What advantage?
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post #18 of 22
2/24/05 at 12:06pm
Quote:
Originally posted by applenut
I believe they just did that yesterday....correct?

And what would Firewire 800 support give you? What advantage?

Yes I was just saying they shouldn't get complacent, they need to keep it up and make sure supply meets demand. The reason I responded is because you implied I said add features and I wrote improve features. FireWire 800 gives me twice the bandwidth of FireWire 400, that's the point. Why USB 2 over 1? FireWire 800 just needs a firmware update it's not a big engineering problem.

But in addition to making the iPod cheaper they also need to add features to encourage people to upgrade. That's why the new software often doesn't work on older iPods. I had a 30GB 3rd gen iPod, why did I decide to get a new iPod photo? Well the price was the same as I bought for 30GB iPod for so it wasn't price. It was because there was a colour screen, slide show support, 60GB hard disk, multiple playlists and shuffle in the main menu and battery-life.
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post #19 of 22
2/24/05 at 1:44pm
Quote:
Originally posted by MacCrazy
Yes I was just saying they shouldn't get complacent, they need to keep it up and make sure supply meets demand. The reason I responded is because you implied I said add features and I wrote improve features. FireWire 800 gives me twice the bandwidth of FireWire 400, that's the point. Why USB 2 over 1? FireWire 800 just needs a firmware update it's not a big engineering problem.

current hard drives used in iPods don't come close to saturating firewire 400. Firewire 800 would be an expensive waste.
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post #20 of 22
2/24/05 at 1:58pm
Quote:
Originally posted by applenut
current hard drives used in iPods don't come close to saturating firewire 400. Firewire 800 would be an expensive waste.

Yeah that's a good point! I would like to see faster iPod hard drives to go with it though! Then i could use my iPod as a mobile HardDrive which would be FAST!
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post #21 of 22
2/24/05 at 9:16pm
Quote:
Originally posted by applenut
its better to be slightly below demand than it is to exceed demand.

right now, your brother means nothing to apple's bottomline and ipod's success. perhaps its a cocky view, but when you have 90% of the market you can be cocky, look at Microsoft all these years.

Well I think you're being shortsighted. It's not just my brother. This happens in many smaller towns and the US of A is full of them. Add the numbers. It means something to Apple's bottomline.
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post #22 of 22
2/24/05 at 9:21pm
Quote:
Originally posted by MacCrazy
And Microsoft is doing badly. Apple need to worry but they don' want to go over, that's fair enough. but they can't just say the customers don't matter. They've got to improve the features so people wont buy another MP3 player.

That is so true. As an Apple fan, I was a little dissapointed when I saw that some Wintel users (like my brother) could point out how other players were a better fit than the mini (at least back then) since it included an FM tunner, easy-to-swap, replaceable batteries, being able to record voice memos without any ad-ons, being able to record from the airwaves, etc.

They've got to keep improving the 'pods because some people get lured away when they see the "have nots" of the iPod line.

I'd still get an iPod over any other player anyway, but that's just because I'm a mac loyalist.
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