Apple Prepares For the Coming iPod Slump

Hugh Pickens writes "Companies like AOL have stagnated along with the products that made them successful as a mature market and downward pressure on prices led to a nasty death spiral, but Saul Hansell writes in the NY Times that Apple has used its amazing six-year run with the iPod to nurture other business lines. Even though the number of iPods sold this quarter grew only 1 percent from the same quarter a year ago, Apple should be able to sustain itself with three business lines that will help it withstand a collapse in the MP3-player market: a continuing revenue stream from the iPods that have already been sold because of the iTunes Store, product upgrades to the iPhone and iPod Touch that are so different that they may well appeal to a significant number of iPod users, and perhaps most significantly, sales of the Macintosh which showed an increase of 51 percent by units and 54 percent by dollars."

Comments

Here's one way they can prepare

[krog]

Make a 12" or 13" MacBook Pro. If that happens, then I will buy a new Mac. Otherwise, they can see how many suckers they can sell a $2500 manila of hot air to...

Re:iPod choices are going downhill

[Uncle Focker]

If I want to carry around my entire music collection then I need at least 100GB. And other than to say that you carry around all your music on your iPod is there an actual practical point of this? Do you routinely spend 2+ months away from your computer listening to music 24/7?