Nov
17
Ipod Still the Hottest Holiday Gadget
Filed Under MP3 Players, Apple | Leave a Comment
Looks like BlackFriars is asking the same question and getting similar results. We see this is not much of a surprise however if you factor in the reach of the Ipod, worldwide, it could be a great Q4 for AAPL.BlackFriars is also predicting that the Ipod sells 20 Million units, now that would truly make any company’s quarter.
I find it interesting that the PS3 and Wii is not getting as more percentage of possible purchases. If you think that an Ipod retails for between $149-$249 and a Wii reatails for $250 they are in the same price point, people want music! This actually probably speaks to the broad demographic that the Ipod hits upon, my mom wants an Ipod but not a Wii.
Just some thoughts as we go into the Holiday Shopping season.
Nov
9
IPod Nano Forecasted as “Hottest” Selling Item for Christmas 2006
Filed Under MP3 Players, Apple | Leave a Comment
We have conducted a survey on electronics retailers expectations for the hottest selling items for the Christmas selling season this year.We called major electronics retailers in North America and Western Europe. The question we asked was simple: “What do you expect to be the best selling item this Christmas selling season?”
The iPod was mentioned by 29% of the respondents in our survey. Our results surprised us somewhat as the iPod was mentioned most often and the new Ipod Nano specifically mentioned most often.
After the iPod, Sony’s Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii were cited as the next most often mentioned item. These games platforms were cited as the expected best seller by 20% of survey repondents. Microsoft X-Box was also mentioned by 15% of our survey respondents. The enthusiasm for the Wii and the Sony PS3 is high and sell-outs are expected for both game platforms by almost everyone we talked with.
HDTV’s, laptops, GPS units, and digital cameras were also mentioned but by far fewer respondents.
Looks like another strong Christmas for Apple and iPod. We had expected to hear strong demand for the new game platforms but the iPod trumped all these and remains the “it” device as far as the retailers are concerned this Christmas season.
Oct
16
UPDATE: Zune in Italy December 15
Filed Under MP3 Players, Apple | Leave a Comment
According to our findings we reported a December 15 release for the ZUNE. We noticed that over at ZuneInfo they say the official word from MSFT is NO, about the December 15 release of Zune. That may be the word from Redmond, however when we did our channel check, retailers in Italy were expecting to have the Zune for sale.This is not a “made up” rumor and is part of what we do here at ChannelCheckers, we take hot topics do a channel check then report the results. We’re not making judgements or predictive calls, just giving the data. The data points were from Unieuro the Eurpoean electronics retailer(part of DSGI), the store called was in Torino Italy. We will keep giving the facts as they come in, but we are doing different channel checks all the time.
Oct
13
Latest Channel Check: Microsoft Zune Available in Italy December 15th
Filed Under MP3 Players, Apple | 1 Comment
Our Microsoft (MSFT) Zune channel check is going about as expected with all U.S. retailers reporting a November 14th launch date. No delays, or early shipment surprises there.In Europe the Zune is reported to us that retailers in Italy will have the Zune in stores December 15th. So one month later than in the U.S. Not sure if this has been published yet and we are pretty Microsoft has not announced this.
Australia and New Zealand retailers have no pre-order ability and no idea about launch dates which suggests to us that it is probably a Q1 2007 launch for the Zune in the South Pacific region. Still working on Asia proper and will re-update this channel check survey next week with more data.