Is the iPod hype a cheat? From
October to December 2007, Apple Sold more iPods than in any quarter since the
introduction of the first iPod six years earlier. Record quarter sales of 22.1
million iPods helped Apple tally $9.6 billion in revenue and $1.5 billion in
profit for its first fiscal quarter.

Yet, financial analysts and media reacted by clobbering
Apple's stock, partly because Apple offered projections for its second-quarter
performance that were below what Wall Street was anticipating, but also because
the record iPod sales failed to meet expectations. Headlines proclaimed that
sales figures for the music player were a warning bell for investors, that the
shine was off the company and that the iPod sales totals were plodding.

 What gives? The
disparity between Apple's reported iPod sales and analyst's strong reaction to
those results boils down to which aspect of the iPod business your looking at. "Apple is always at the front of the market and always will be for
mp3 players now," says Joby Kent,
owner of PiczoTube and online websites where members can share pictures,
videos, games, and live radio. "The iPod is a
great product and deserves its hype, and the iPods are only getting better and
thinner." Apple moved more than 22 million iPods last quarter,
keeping the company lodged securely in first place in the digital music player
market in December with a share of 67 percent of the market. "Well I’m not sure if the sales are true or false but I can tell you
the Apple iPod is a very good selling product." Joby puts in once more.
"But I think people will always try to make Apple look bad somewhere even
if their product is perfect."

What it seems like is that what the analysts and the media
were reacting to was a lack of big growth in iPod sales during the previous
year. For the fiscal first quarter of 2007, Apple sold those 21 million iPods,
meaning over that year-to-year, the iPod sales grew only 5 percent-still an
increase, though not the kind of robust Wall Street had come to expect.  “I think if they
got any bigger in the Mp3 market - They'd burst” Says Joby once more. “Seriously
5% is good regarding the amount of share they already have in the market.”

It seems that the critics are only trying to make Apple look
bad. Thanks for reading.

~~~~JD