Apple edges Sony for 100m record

Apple, Sony, and Nintendo are the only companies to sell 100 million in sales of a single product family. Sony did it in the 1980s and 1990s with the walkman cassette player, but it took the electronics giant more than 13 years (but it sold over 350 million units)--making it the most popular electronic device in history; the company reached the 100 million milestone again with its PlayStation 2 game console--this time in five years and eight months and Nintendo's GameBoy system reached the same milestone in 13 yrs, but it appears that Apple holds the record--although the classification includes all of the iPod family. According to Forbes, Apple reached 100 million iPods in five-and-a-half years, making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history--an achievement that is likely to stand in the record books for the foreseeable future. [updated]

The report indicates that no other device will likely get close, as Sony PlayStation 3 doesn't appear to have the ubiquitous appeal that its predecessor had in market crowded by Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's own Xbox; the Motorola RAZR, which has shipped nearly 60 million units, appears to have already hit its sales peak, according to the report.

"By the end of March 2007, Sony had sold between 4.5 million and 6 million of its new PlayStation 3's worldwide. The company would have to sell 1.4 million units a month for the next 64 months to beat the record. And right now Sony is selling only about 150,000 units a month.

The report notes that Research in Motion has only 7 million subscribers (though it is unclear whether this number represents handsets or service subscribers) and Microsoft only expects to sell 1 million Zune players by the end of June 2007.

Filed under: Apple