According to an interview over at SFGate.com with Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, Microsoft has surpassed its own goal of selling one million Zunes. Microsoft hoped to meet the target by the end of the 2007 fiscal year, which ends June 30.
Question: Can you talk a little bit about the Zune overall? Will we see next-generation Zunes coming out, particularly flash-based players?
Bach: We're still about nine months into having Zune in the marketplace. We're very pleased with the progress. We've sold a little over a million Zunes. In the category we're in, the hard-disk-based category, we've got about 10 percent market share. It's a good start. It's not an overwhelming start. I'm not going to pretend it's some gigantic move.
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News source: San Francisco Chronicle
Question: Can you talk a little bit about the Zune overall? Will we see next-generation Zunes coming out, particularly flash-based players?
Bach: We're still about nine months into having Zune in the marketplace. We're very pleased with the progress. We've sold a little over a million Zunes. In the category we're in, the hard-disk-based category, we've got about 10 percent market share. It's a good start. It's not an overwhelming start. I'm not going to pretend it's some gigantic move.
View: Full Story News source: San Francisco Chronicle
And I could say that more music players are CD based, it wouldn't make a difference. Microsoft isn't targeting the flash-memory based market, they're targeting the hard-drive based market and they've taken 10% of it on the first round. Just because the majority of devices don't use hard-drives doesn't make this any less of a success.
When Microsoft releases their own flash memory based device, THEN you can bitch.
And I could say that more music players are CD based, it wouldn't make a difference. Microsoft isn't targeting the flash-memory based market, they're targeting the hard-drive based market and they've taken 10% of it on the first round. Just because the majority of devices don't use hard-drives doesn't make this any less of a success.
When Microsoft releases their own flash memory based device, THEN you can bitch.
I think I can bitch already as the technology used in a device is pretty much a pointless category. Hard drive and flash based players compete directly against each other as they use the same media and the same method for access. I'd agree that CD players could be compared against mini disc or even cassette players but they are hardly in the same league as mp3 players.
How many customers go out specifically thinking "I'm going to buy a hard-disk based mp3 player", the vast majority don't, they just want a player with the right cost, features, colour, format, size and Microsoft is hoping to appeal to them all.
Next up Microsoft anounces that they have 100% of the crappy brown music player market.
Or
Microsoft anounces that they have 100% of the pointless battery wasting wifi capability mp3 player market
Great news. Horrible? have you looked at the Zune lately? BTW: Creative still is 2nd place worldwide in the market share for all daps.
Yeah, but the Zune was only in the US, not worldwide. 1 million so quickly in only one tiny portion of the world is pretty impressive.
Umm, thats dumb. If you liked iPods so much, you would WANT them to take away from Apple's market share. This way you get better competition, and better quality players. Smarten up.
Apple has mediocre answers for the majority. I can think of plenty of improvements that would benefit everyone if only they were implemented. ie, not having to use a seperate program to transfer audio and video? Hmm...
Great news. Horrible? have you looked at the Zune lately? BTW: Creative still is 2nd place worldwide in the market share for all daps.
Where did you get that idea? Sandisk is second with 9%. Creative is way behind with 3.3%, still up above Microsoft though at 2.3%
http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/04/s..._connect_a.html
Maybe in HDD based players, but I doubt it...
They're talking about current market share, not overall sales.
minisor shuffles.Fixed that for you ;-) I'm pretty sure my iPod mini has a hard drive.
How many CD walkmans are still in use?
Less than 5% of all iPods sold were first to third generation iPods. Most of the iPods that make up Apple's "100 million iPods sold" are fourth and fifth generations iPod, iPod minis, iPod nanos, or iPod shuffles.
Considering the article title is "More than 1 Million Zune players sold," I'd say it has something to do with overall sales.
The Zune's current market share right now, out of all portable MP3 players sold, is in the very, very low single digits. Some people just like to make it look like the Zune's still significant by stating its market share in a very specific market, like "all 30 GB HD-based MP3 players sold since the release of the Zune and sold only in stores that don't sell the iPod."
No specifics, why am I not surprised.
Nope, you're not crazy. I have a Zune, and when I travel, I appear to be the only person who has one. This would, however, make sense because given the fact that there have been hundreds of millions of personal media players sold, with the majority being iPods over the past 5 years or so.
Things don't just appear "in the wild" overnight, it takes time.
Apple hasn't updated the iPods for a while now. Look for them to release something better soon. If they make an iPod base on the iPhone's touchscreen design, but without the phone features, it could be a killer product. They just need to add a hard drive to it and keep the price somewhat reasonable. We'll see what the next gen iPod and Zune will have to offer for those waiting to buy one.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=/102-0117477-9...;sort=salesrank
Top 50 MP3 players:
Apple iPod: 15 (all in the top 25)
Creative: 13
SanDisk: 9
MS Zune: 3
Sony: 3
Archos: 2
Samsung: 2
Toshiba: 1
Cowan: 1
Unfortunately they don't list exact numbers, but at least it shows some high level trends.
Source
BIG difference.
iPod users can look forward to Apple's new "killer" iPod revision.
Zune users can look forward to Microsoft's next Zune revision.
Zen users can look forward to Creative's next Zen revision.
and so on and so forth.
when the new product shows growing market share, the existing products can take solace in the fact that they are established brands and their new product revisions have a better chance of getting newer customers. like the next iPod (whatever form it takes) will get huge sales because it's an iPod.
at the same time, MS has proven that they can inject something different into the market and come out with some customers, and the next Zune would at least have a better chance at selling that the first one, simply on reputation alone.
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