iPod has 68 mn users in 5 years

Apple's iconic MP3 player -- the iPod -- is being used by 68 million users as it completes five years of its existence today. Around 39 million iPods were sold over the last 12 months while 8.73 million over the past three months itself.

There are now more than 3,000 accessories available for the iPod. In fact, Apple launched the iPod on October 23 in 2001 now has a 72 per cent of the US portable MP3 player market, according to research group NPD. The scene is no different in other parts of the country.

In 2004, a leading Wall Street analyst Charles Wolf reportedly said he expected 100 million Windows users to own iPods by 2008. No exaggeration given that Apple shipped 1.6 million Macintosh computers and 8.73 million iPods during this quarter, representing a 30 per cent growth in Macs and 35 per cent growth in iPods over the previous year's quarter. Apple appears to be gaining from this trend.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster recently noted that a large number of iPod users are turning into new Mac computer purchasers.

"The 68 million iPods sold in the past five years are translating to the resurgence in the Mac platform with worldwide Mac market share increasing from 2.1 per cent in March of 2006 to 2.8 per cent today."

The results of his 12th bi-annual high school teen survey revealed that 79 per cent of those who own an MP3 player possess an iPod and 76 per cent of those who plan on buying an MP3 player over the next 12 months expect to purchase an iPod.

No wonder, Apple's iPod sales in this quarter was more than it generated as an entire company back in October 2001 (the year it was launched). But the first iPod could store only 1,000 songs on its hard drive. It was about the size of a deck of cards.

Analysts had offered mixed reactions to the iPod -- especially to its price tag of $399. The iPod outpriced its competitor -- the $249 6GB Nomad Jukebox from Creative Labs.

Ironically, Apple will pay Creative $100 million for a paid-up license to use the latter's recently-awarded patent in all Apple products. Digital music player maker Creative Technology (which has less than a 10 per cent share of the MP3 player market, according to NPD) had asked a US court to ban Apple from selling or marketing its iconic iPods in the US.

The iPod has now grown in size --can store videos and has a 60GB storage capacity (thousands of songs and photos and hundreds of videos).

This September, Apple introduced the all-new iPod nano with a new aluminum body, 24 hours of battery life and more than twice the music capacity for the same price as the previous generation.

The new iPod nano features Apple's innovative Click Wheel and an even smaller, thinner and lighter design available in silver, pink, green, blue and black.

The new iPod nano also lets customers choose from over 3.5 million songs from the world's most popular digital music store.

Muster believes the "halo effect" will expand beyond a simple iPod-to-Mac correlation into a four-way relationship with iPod, Mac, iPhone, and iTV over the next six months.