ipod
12/13/2005, 2:25pm, EST
Tuesday, December 13th
Competitors can't touch iPod price, UI, coolness
Investment research firm PiperJaffray today said it believes the only way competitors can steal market share away from the iPod is to price their devices below Apple's -- and so far that is not happening. Creative, for example, has priced its 30GB video iPod competitor at $330 -- 10 percent more than the iPod. While it may offer more features, Piper says consumers will stick pick the iPod for its ease of use and "cool" factor. "We believe that non-iPod devices must compete on price to gain adoption, but Apple has such massive relative shipment volume with the iPod that other MP3 player manufacturers are not able to replicate the economies of scale achieved by Apple. We believe this reality will allow Apple to sell iPods at the lowest prices in the market, thus retaining the iPod's pole position for years." The firm also said in its report today that it expects 2006 to be a stronger year for Apple both in terms of its iPod line and Mac products (with Intel machines just around the corner).
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Also, I think it's hilarious that people are crying foul when Apple is enjoying economies of scale. PC peripheral makers still enjoy better economies of scale on the Windows side, but you don't hear Apple whining - they just keep coming out with better products.
a 2-fold increase? make that a quadruple increase just for a start. 90% of the people i know want a mac if it can run Windows and gets cheaper. If the price go's down, and it will, the Mac is going to be the iPod of the personal computer. I always taught clones would be necessary to keep up with demand but the iPod proves that Apple can handle a tenfold easily.
Concentrating on a few models can make them cheaper than the competition and stay cool at the same time. A killer combination that i'm really looking forward to. :)