iPhone seen as “cannibalizing” iPod market, and Apple expected it?

Sales of traditional MP3 players like the iPod nano, iPod shuffle and iPod classic continue to decline, as the enemies of these Apple products — the iPhone and iPod touch — come from within the same company.

iPod Nano

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer, said the company had expected that consumers would lose interest in traditional MP3 players over time, and that was one of the reasons the iPhone platform was created: to supplant the iPods and cause them to be redundant.

“We expect our traditional MP3 players to decline over time,” Oppenheimer said during Tuesday’s earnings report conference call, “as we cannibalize ourselves with the iPod touch and the iPhone.”

Later, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook also used the word “cannibalization” to define the iPhone chipping away at traditional iPod sales. And…they knew it would happen. Yes, yes they did.

Realizing that iPod sales would slow, Apple has lowered channel inventory of its lineup by about 400,000 units. Cook said this was partially due to the shrinking market for traditional MP3 players.

Together, the iPhone and iPod touch have sold 45 million units. Year over year, sales of the iPod touch increased 130 percent in the third quarter of the 2009 fiscal year, making it not quite dead yet.

Posted on Jul 23rd, 2009 by Rob Goodchild in iPhones Talk | 2 Comments

Related posts:

  1. Apple’s iPod Touch sales surging recently, selling almost as well as the iPhone now
  2. Apple earnings soar as iPhone shipments revealed
  3. iPod Touch sales catch fire with price drops, iPhone sales set new record

2 Comments to “iPhone seen as “cannibalizing” iPod market, and Apple expected it?”

  1. on 24 Jul 2009 at 8:51 am1Xe

    Who would buy an iPod these days? I have an old one at home, cant remember the last time it was used by anyone.

  2. on 02 Aug 2009 at 11:25 pm2C

    Why do you ask that like a question? The iPhone contains an iPod within it, making it two devices in one. Only an idiot wouldn’t expect it to cannabalize the original iPod’s sales.

    What do you have against Apple, Iphonestalk? Isn’t the only unnecessarily critical headline in the pile. Apple deserves it in some quarters, but not in the places you’re punching them.

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