100 Million iPods 241
prelelat writes "I find it somewhat hard to believe but this story over at PC world, indicates that the iPod has sold over 100 million units. It also asks how many are broken and replaced which makes me believe the number may be more accurate."
"Sold" probably includes them all (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if there's a 10% warantee number, that still makes for 90M-or-so real sales. That is not too suprising considering how iconic the ipod is and how much Apple have invested in creating that image.
I wonder what Apple's advertising budget is for ipod? It probably gets to be somewhere around a buck per unit.
A bit of perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
The value of good user interface design... (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably at least 5M units broken... (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, the real question is whether or not the proportion of lost/broken/damaged/stolen/etc iPods is similar to other devices. After all, do iPods really have a higher failure rate, or is it because there's more of them, you hear more about them?
(And before you start blaming the non-replacable battery - there are few devices other than cellphones, cameras and laptops where having a replacable battery actually is useful - it's likely by the time you need a replacement, the battery isn't even made anymore... Can you get replacement Li-Ion batteries for the many HPaq PDAs out there other than the current model/phone models? Or the multitude of 'superior' mp3 players of at least a couple years vintage?)
Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
1 song = 4E6 bytes
Total songs = 2E18 bytes / 4E6 bytes = 5E11 songs
1 song via ITMS = $1
Total cost to fill all ipods = 500 000 000 000 dollars
GDP of New Zealand = 108 520 000 000
Thus, it would take 5E11/1.08E11 = 4.62 years worth of New Zealand's national product to fill all ipods with music.
Wow! That is a lot of music!
Why dump something growing 30% a year? (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially seeing how a little less than half of their profits each year stem from the Mac. Dumping the Mac would almost automatically require them to dump half their workforce, more or less.
That's an impressive feat (Score:4, Interesting)
My wife and I have 5 between us... (Score:3, Interesting)
iPod - 40GB (3/4th gen?)
iPod Mini (1st gen)
iPod Nano (2nd gen)
iPod Shuffle (1st gen)
iPod Shuffle (2nd gen)
I've been tempted to get the 5.5gen iPod, but I think I'll wait for widescreen.
Re:The value of good user interface design... (Score:3, Interesting)
AKA vendor lock-in. All hail the Apple monoculture!
What you call a "vendor lock-in" I call "It just works(TM)".
Also, at the risk of starting a flame war, dare I mention that Windows is the greatest lock-in of all? Business use it because initial cost is cheap, thus causing many home users to be "required" to buy a windows machine so they can work at home.
I see it almost daily. Somebody wants to buy a computer, and they tell me they've always loved the Macintosh (and many were former Mac owners) but that they had to leave the platform so that they could work at home. Breaks my heart every time.
(Disclosure: I work at an Apple retail store)
Re:Sooo (Score:3, Interesting)
Moreover, I wonder how many of us replaced and upgraded our various cassette or CD players. I've easily owned 4 or 5 walkmen and several diskmen, and countless car and home players. It's not like Sony's sales numbers were grounded on devices that no one replaced. Overtime those product lines gained new features, grew smaller / lighter, needed fewer batteries, adopted new form factors, etc. Moreover, like large iPods, they were devices that had movable parts and crapped out from time to time.
There is also the issue of needing separate cassette and CD players for your car, home, patio, person, etc. Many people use one iPod for multiple environments. The iPod targets a much wider demographic then the Walkmen, so we shouldn't be surprised to see bigger sales numbers.
I'm not trying to advocate iPod scratches or failed hard drives, but context is nice.
Re:~~~100 million~~~ (Score:3, Interesting)
I have bought FOUR 30 gig video ipods in the pat 15 months. Two for Xmas 2006 (gifts); one for myself in the fall of 2006 and still one more for Xmas 2006 (gift).
Now, I'm just one guy. But that's a whole lot of buying from just one guy. And while I'm different - I'm not *that* different. The number of white ear buds on the TTC when I take the bus or subway says to me: 100 million world wide? Entirely possible.
Re:Why so hard to believe? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had 4 non-iPod MP3 players and my failure rate was 100%. All four of them broke -- most shortly after their 90 day warrantee. Two of them were gifts to other people and I feel bad for not buying them iPods now. One was a Creative and the other three were off-brand.
Since then, I learned my lesson. I've bought an iPod Shuffle and more recently an iPod Nano. Both work just fine and the Shuffle is about 2.5 years old.
All I can say is if people here are wondering how many iPods get bought to replace broken ones, they should certainly question how many MP3 players are bought in general to replace other ones.
Re:~~~100 million~~~ (Score:3, Interesting)
5 were purchased by my household (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A bit more (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you serious?
Let's say the iPod was released in 2001. They've sold 100 million units. But if, as you claim, 50+ million are in stores/warehouses, that means they've sold about 50 million in the 6 years since release.
Apple refresh the iPod lines every 1 or 2 years. This means the sales life-span of a model is 2 years max.
So your argument is that Apple keep SIX YEARS' worth of stock in the supply chain? And that of that stock, 4 years' worth, or about 33 MILLION will never be sold, because a new replacement model will be out by then?
Well, you've convinced me.