iPod sales have been steadily declining since their peak at 22.7 million in December 2008, and analysts estimate another 7.2 percent drop over the quarter that just ended.
Apple still commands 70 percent of the MP3 player market, but it’s clear that other mobile devices, namely smartphones and tablets, can do the job of an MP3 player (while performing a myriad of other functions, too).
In September of last year, Apple dramatically revamped its line of iPods, even giving the iPod Touch some features that were unique to the iPhone 4 at the time, namely FaceTime. Smartphones are increasingly dominating U.S. mobile phone purchases, and as consumers purchase the feature-rich devices, they no longer have a need for the single-purpose MP3 player. rumours have blazed for years that Apple would discontinue one (typically the iPod Classic) or more iPod models, but it hasn’t happened yet.
It’s worth nothing that for the first time since the iPod Touch was introduced, it’s not being included in Apple’s Back to School promo as a freebie with a Mac purchase. The iPod Touch was replaced with a $US100 iTunes gift card – a freebie that can be used with almost any Apple device, and could help bolster their soon-to-be burgeoning iCloud streaming service.
It’s possible that Apple could lay an iPod, likely the old iPod Classic rather than the more popular iPod Touch, to rest at its upcoming September event.
But although iPod sales are shrinking, it’s hardly an issue for Apple. The iPhone 4 sold 18.6 million units in the first quarter of 2011 alone. And according to a study from Resolve Market Research, between 80 and 90% of tablet-owning respondents had an iPad or iPad 2. But, some analysts think Apple missed out on an opportunity for more sales.
“We believe iOS devices would have been up ~20 percent (quarter over quarter) if iPhone 5 had shipped in June,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said today. In late June, Google’s Andy Rubin tweeted that there are over half a million Android device activations happening daily, and yesterday, that number jumped up to 550,000 per day. Some of those extra purchases could have been iPhones, had an iPhone 5 been available.
Regardless, Apple still has a solid spot as one of the top three smartphone manufacturers in the United States. And as more and more people lay their MP3 players to rest, they’ll be turning to smartphones to plug in for their mobile music fix.
EckyThump
Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 3:17 PMNo doubt Jobs will take the Ipod sales team out the back and have them humanely put down. #]
Richard
Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 5:50 PMThey still have a big place in the market, I wouldn’t be too quick to get rid of them. That includes the classic which I’d like to see refreshed rather than outright dropped as I’m sure there is demand for devices with larger capacity. Once the touch has 128GB in it maybe but Apple has been stuck on 64GB for a bit now and while iCloud will help solve that for the phone, its not a lot of help to a non networked device.
Tim
Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 7:57 PMI certainly won’t be getting rid of my Ipod classic, it holds all my music, many movies (most digital copies from blu-rays) as well as backups of everything on my computer, I use it every day as my main music device.
I’ve tried to using my iphone as a music device, while it has cool features, it is nowhere near as easy to control or use as the classic.
If I need to upgrade and apple ceases support for the classic, I’ll be looking elsewhere for a product with similar features.
Jo
Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 11:16 PMI prefer to have an all purpose mp3 player because I’m paranoid about my phone running out of batteries when I really need it. With an mp3 player, in my case an iPod touch, I can listen/watch/game until it dies whereas I wouldn’t do that with my phone.
Todd
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 10:22 AMI have my iPad, my iPhone 4 and my iPod classic 80GB, until the iPhones get at least double the capacity they currently have, I’ll be sticking with my iPod for music and just purchasing smaller capacity iPhones. It might just be me, but the market saturation of the iPod could be the main reason for the decline, that and the ever decreasing cost of getting an iPhone.
Penmonicus
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 11:46 AMAs opposed to most commenters, I prefer everything in one device. I remember fiddling with my MP3 player, phone and DS and looking forward to the day they’d all be merged into one. It’s here, and I’m happy about it.
Just hoping the iPhone 5 has double the capacity…
TSH
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 12:33 PMLike Penmonicus I was a convergence device skeptic. However smartphones have assimilated pagers, PDAs, alarm clocks – and they’ve have been quite capable media players for a few years now. As much as I loved my Creative Zen, after it broke I continued using my N95 (and now, my N97) and only missed a few of the features.
Nokia’s N8 has a camera that’s better than Canon P&S digicams – once optical zoom and stabilisation are miniaturised, cheap digital cameras will really be under threat.
Troy
Monday, July 18, 2011 at 2:26 PMGetting rid of the ipod classic is a bad idea. The touches arent big enough to replace it, and if you remove the old wheel design, you’re essentially removing what made the ipod great. I don’t like the touches, i have a galaxy s 2 now as my phone, but it will never replace my ipod classic as my most loved music device.
I was travelling the states last year and my ipod video 5.5g got stolen off me while asleep on a bus across the country. When I arrived in san fran, i bought a new one, within 24 hours of the old one being taken. I did not even consider a touch and still wouldnt.
The ipod classic is the only apple thing I own, and the only thing I really respect about them. I’m one of those people who doesnt like to just follow the crowd, i will never own an iphone, simply cos ‘everyone else’ does.