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iPod Sales Explosion Out-Sells Mac for Apple


04-15-04 Keavin
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iPod is the Apple in Jobs eye. There are many smiling faces in Cupertino today. Apple Corp�s net profits jumped almost a third during its second fiscal quarter. It wasn�t a hot new Mac or even the iTunes music service that put Apple over the finish line, instead it was the iPod music player. 

Apple was able to show a net profit of $46 million for the second quarter, compared to $14 million during the same quarter last year. That translates to a revenue jump of 29% over the second quarter last year with the company bringing in gross revenue of  $1.9 billion.  

Unit sales of the iPod bested the Mac as well. Apple sold 749,000 computers during the quarter and 807,000 iPods. That�s a 900% increase in sales for the iPod over last year. However, the Mac is still the cash cow of Apple. Computers still represent 61% of Apple�s revenue with the iPod�s coming in at around 15%. 

"We feel great," said Apple CEO and co-founder Steven Jobs. "We sold a lot of Macs, but we've sold more iPods in the quarter than all the Macs put together."

Apple has sold 2.9 million iPods since they introduced them two years ago, according to Jobs, and they now represent 40% of the portable mp3 player market. 

And demand doesn�t seem to be letting up. The iPod mini was introduced in February and Apple has been unable to manufacture enough of the units to meet the high demand. This despite reports that the new units still have some bugs to be ironed out. Something that Apple denies, saying that the number of calls to their customer support over the new devices has been �extremely small�

Where is the Microsoft Portable Media player? With these kinds of numbers, you can bet that one is being dreamed up in Redmond, or they are on the prowl to buy one up. They already have �Portable Media Centers� planned for the second half of this year. But then again it did take them 10 years to catch up to Mac. 
 


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