Posts Tagged ‘Gene Munster’

Has the iPod finally peaked? According to BusinessWeek, some analysts believe this will be the first quarter since the iconic music player was introduced in 2001 that sales will decline compared to the same quarter the previous year.

“The reality is there’s a limited group of people who want an iPod or any other portable media player,” said analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray in the article. “So the question becomes, what does Apple do about it?”

In the end, it may not matter because of the iPhone and the recent increase in Mac sales. But the numbers, quoted from the report, are telling:

Read more

Apple may sell less iPods this holiday season than last, which would mark the first time that’s ever happened, Silicon Alley Insider reports.

“Wall Street expects Apple to ship 18.6 million iPods this quarter,” said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in the article. “That would represent a 16% year-over-year decline, from 22.1 million iPods shipped during the December quarter last year.”

The flip side of this is, of course, the iPhone, which has already sold over 10 million units and combines an iPod Touch with a cell phone. (It was actually designed in the other direction—the iPod Touch is missing the cellular radio—but the net effect is the same.) But the message is clear: the iPod is no longer the growth driver for Apple; instead, it’s the Mac and the iPhone, according to the report.

As Fortune writes, Jeff Bezos has done it again—after creating an online MP3 music store that quickly became the only serious rival to Apple’s iTunes Store, the Amazon CEO has now struck a deal with MySpace for its new music service that will only strengthen the company’s position.

Amazon still has a very long way to go, however. Gene Munster, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffrey, projected in the article that Apple will sell 2.4 billion songs this year, which translates to an 85% market share. In comparison, Amazon will sell just 130 million downloads, which corresponds to just a 5% share. Munster said that the new MySpace arrangement could set up Amazon for a 60% increase next year to 208 million songs; still far behind, but a significant step ahead of Napster, Rhapsody, and the others.

The report said that right now, most of the people buying from Amazon’s MP3 Store are the ones who would have bought CDs from Amazon. The new MySpace linkup could give Amazon a chance to actually steal customers from Apple—not an unrealistic prospect, given that the MP3 Store sells tracks for 89 cents (10 cents cheaper than Apple), and sells them DRM-free from all four major labels at a higher (and therefore better-sounding) bit rate than what Apple uses.

(Image credit: Barry Falls / BusinessWeek)

BusinessWeek writes that while Apple shareholders are a pretty happy bunch lately, if there is one complaint, it’s the company’s refusal to touch its $20.8 billion hoard in cash and short-term investments. “The cash just sits there, earning little more than the average savings account.” (For comparison, Microsoft has $23.7 billion in cash.)

Plus, Apple’s hoard is only going to get bigger. Some analysts predict the company’s hoard could surge to nearly $30 billion over the next year because of strong sales of its products, the report said. “[Apple] could have $40 billion in the bank [in two years],” said Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray analyst, in the article.

Read more