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We’ve been off for a while tweaking some of our methods and increasing the range of our coverage on channel checks. We’er back now and we believe you can expect to see a broader range of topics covered and in greater depth.We’ll start with Apple (the favorite topic of our small but growing audience apparently). We ran three new channel checks on Apple one on the iPod, one on the new Apple TV and one on the pending iPhone. We’ll start with the iPod survey. We found that 23 of 54 (43%) electronics retailers we spoke with recommended a competing MP3 player as the best one to buy. When we asked what was the BEST MP3 player in the market Apple iPod dominated with about 80% of respondents citing Apple. It looks to us like Creative Micro’s Zen MP3 product line is competing well at the high end of the MP3 market against iPod’s while the Sandisk Sansa product line is cited most often as a solid low-end option. The Sansa competes most directly with the Shuffle and Nano from Apple.

The most interesting finding for us was that at Best Buy some respondents were pushing the Insignia MP3 player product line. We had not heard of this brand but discovered that Insignia is the Best Buy white label brand (see story at http://www.gadgetell.com/2006/12/best-buys-insignia-mp3-players/). It occurs to has this has the potential to create a little channel conflict between Best Buy and Apple at some point, but for now the Insignia does not seem to be taking a lot of market share.

Apple TV is now in stores as we write this. It was not available generally when we conducted our survey. The takeway from our survey on Apple TV was that most respondents felt it would be a good product but would serve a niche Apple-centric market.

iPhone was the most interesting survey for us even as the launch date is debated at other web sites and by commentators. We found two key indicators of good demand for the iPhone in our survey. First, Cingular stores are taking names for a waiting list for these phones. In our experience this rarely happens in the cell phone industry. Second, Cingular store representatives are encouraging us to wait for the iPhone and forego buying a new phone today. Again, this is almost unheard of, especially when we consider that most cell phone salespeople are compensated for hitting daily sales quotas - driving them to try and sell phones today, not threee months from now. Apple has publicly targeted 10M iPhone units as its early sales goal. We understand that Apple is having 12M built. We believe that the iPhone will sell out and that unit sales will be over the 12M initial production run that Apple has ordered. We believe that Hon Hai (AKA Foxconn) is the manufacturere for iPhone product.

So a helpful comment from a reader says that using Google Base we can find 8GB Ipod Nano’s for $105 versus the Apple suggested price of $249 enforced across the big chains.While Google Base sells cheaper iPod’s the volumes across that channel will not big. The real question seems to be will Google Base and other sites force the main-line retailers and Apple themseves to cut prices on iPod’s significantly in coming weeks or months.

We’ll keep working to find out.

Just some more food for thought.

Apple has done more things right than create new product categories and consumer friendly computers. We just completed a survey after Apple’s dissapointing financial forecast that pointed to lower earnings than Wall Street expected for the March quarter.We ran a quick survey check of prices on the Apple 80GB iPod. A simple search reveals that on the Apple.com web site that 80GB iPod’s sell for $349. This $349 price is fairly firm across most major U.S. retailers, at least on their web sites, including Best Buy ($349), Amazon ($339) and Target ($349.99). To us this pricing consistency is a key to Apple’s strong margins and profitability in its iPod line.

Our survey thoug revealed some cracks in this sea of retailing discipline for Apple. We found products listed as “New” 80GB Apple iPods for substantially less than $349 or even $339. Are these approved Apple re-sellers? The first source for cheap 80Gb iPods came from Google base, where $250 and $242 were the going rates for new Apple 80GB iPods. We also found discounted 80Gb iPods at Onsale.com for as low as $308.

We don’t think our web price searching says too much about Apple’s prospects but we do think it shows that pricing in the distribution channel is becoming somewhat disorderly which could lead to more dramatic price cuts in the future on iPod products from Apple.

Our survey is now complete. We asked retailers around the world, although primarily focused on the U.S. since the Zune is not available in most overseas markets, which MP3 players were selling best, if they sold the Zune and which one they personally recommended.The final results are as follows. 81% of respondents told us they reccomended an iPod with the 30GB or 60GB model most commonly suggested. This differs from our earlier survey suggesting that the iPod Nano and Shuffle would be the hottest iPod models. 11% of survey respondents suggested the Creative Micro Zen MP3 player, primarily because functionality was close to the iPod and Zune and was cheaper to buy. Finally, Zune was recommended by only 7% of our respondents.

Our goal at Channel Checkers is to be the source for primary channel data. We leave the analysis to you the reader. Our two preview posts on this survey led to quite a bit of traffic and comments suggesting we are biased in our surveys. We are not dedicated Zune or iPod fans. We are fans of good solid original data that readers can use to draw useful conclusions.

Now to the rest of the survey. On the question of was the Zune selling well or not we got more positive feedback from the channel. 40% of respondents who carried the Zune said that the product was selling well. In many of these cases the respondents clarified that Zune did not sell in as much volume as iPod’s but that meaningful unit sales were occuring for the Zune. At Best Buy’s specifically, 50% of respondents said that the Zune was selling well while 50% said it was not selling well. One Best Buy respondent told us “Yes {we’ve sold alot of Zune’s}, it was also Black Friday so {we} sold alot of electronics products”

iPod’s were recommended for many reasons including flat out better product, iTunes, more accessories, been around longer, etc. When other brands were mentioned price was the most often cited reason for a customer being steered to a non-Apple MP3 player. Creative, Sandisk, Transcend were all recommended as cheaper alternatives. our survey left us wondering - What ever happened to iRiver? The once number 3 MP3 player manufactured has not been mentioned by any respondent in any survey on MP3 players all year.

Our survey results are not a big surprise although we might have expected the Zune to perform a little bit better. It does seem as though Best Buy is selling decent volumes of Zune’s but that other major retailers like Circuit City may be moving far fewer for some reason. It is clear that iPod dominates mind share among those who sell electronics to the public and whether or not one believes that the iPod is the best MP3 player device it will clearly be the most recommended for the forseeable future.

We are working on our follow-up survey on iPod sales versus the new Microsoft Zune MP3 player. Our first survey revealed a strong preference for the iPod despite the buzz around the Zune. Now the zune has launched we are working on seeing what consumer preferences are as the Christmas shopping season gets underway.Our survey questions were the following:

Which MP3 player do you recommend?

Do you sell the Microsoft Zune?

How well is it selling?

Our survey is not complete but the early results are interestng. First, iPod remains the dominant MP3 player, recommended by 70% of our respondents. The Zune was recommended by some who cited its Wi-fi connectivity as an attractive feature. The Zune and iPod 30GB players are priced similarly so price does not seem to offer an advantage to either competitor at the 30GB density.
What is interesting at this stage is that almost 50% of our survey respondents, even those recommending the iPod as the best MP3 player cited price as a negative for the iPod as indicated there were other brands that offered enough functionality to make the lower price worthwhile for a customer. The Creative Zen was recommended as one of the options for a lower priced player, as was the Sandisk Sansa and the Transcend. One respondent from a major U.S. Electronics chain said the Transcend MP3 player was selling the best among the lower priced MP3 players.

Our survey is not complete and we do capture a significant number of international responses where the Zune is not yet shipping. In India our retailer respondents suggested that March 2007 is a target date for the launch in that country. Most retailers reported selling Zune’s but fewer than the number of iPod’s sold.

We will work to complete our survey in the next few days but the early tabulations look like big unit shipments for Apple again as the Christmas selling season progresses.

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.

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.

Summarizing, it looks like January 15th roughly is the date for France and the UK while early to mid-December seems to be the expectation from retailers in Italy and Germany.  While a little contradictory it seems to us that it is clear that the Zune will not be a Christmas item in Europe as the earliest launch dates seem too late.

We have continued to research potential launch date for the Microsoft Zune in the broader European market. Our latest survey has picked up the following data points.The question asked was:  “When will the Microsoft Zune MP3 player be available in the store?”  Many retailers did not know when the Zune would launch but a few offered some interesting insight, including the following key data points:

PC City (Paris, France) said that they expected to have Zune’s available at the start of 2007 (which we interpret to mean 1/1/07).

Comet (Cardiff, UK) said they “will be stocking it sometime, hopefully very soon”  but no definite data given for launch in UK.

Euronics (Torino, Italy) said after December 15th of this year, echoing our earlier data point also from a retailer in Italy.

Atelco (Hamburg, Germany) Store employee assumes they will have Zune in early December. Could not provide a firm data but expectation seems to be for December.

Saturn (Graz, Austria) - Had no idea about the Zune or its availability.

Judging by these most recent channel checks it appears that December seems to be a good target for the launch date of the Zune in Europe. If our Euronics check is accurate, it would confirm the December 15th launch in Italy. Sounds like Germany and the UK could be on the same schedule.  France and Austria appear fuzzier from these comments.  We’ll keep working to get the most accurate read on Zune activity and key launch dates.

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.

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