Zune Sales Not So Bad After All

pyrbrand writes "Despite the iFanboy jabber that Zune sales were horrific, CNN has a story to the contrary. Turns out Zune was the #2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales. Not a bad start for the challenger to the iPod throne. As others have pointed out the Amazon sales rank may have been thrown off by Zune sales being divided between the three colors."

divided sales

Aren't the sales for ipods also divided between all the various models and colors?

Re:divided sales

Aren't the sales for ipods also divided between all the various models and colors?
 
 

Yes - every SKU that is different is a different product. So, for example, the red nano is one product. The black nano is another product. The black and white 30GB video iPod are two products. And so on.

Re:divided sales

[...]the red nano is one product. The black nano is another product. The black and white 30GB video iPod are two products. And so on.

Yes, but this isn't the main way in how the report was misleading. The main problem is that TFA mentions (according to one analysis) 2nd place for the Zune, with 9% of the market, which places it before SanDisk and after Apple. Yet no numbers are given for Sandisk or Apple. For all we know, the numbers are 70% Apple, 9% Zune, 8.99% SanDisk. According to the other analysis, Zune had 7%, putting it behind SanDisk, which supports the theory that their market shares are very close.

In addition, we don't know who the 7-9% was taken out of. If all of it came out of Apple's share, that is one thing, but if it came out of Microsoft's former PlaysForSure partners, mainly SanDisk, then it is another. TFA simply does not go into any detail here.

So, TFA has nothing to dispute the theory, mentioned many times in the past on Slashdot, that the Zune will indeed be a 'killer', but mainly a PlaysForSure-killer, not an iPod-killer. On the contrary, that theory seems to be partially borne out by TFA and the blanks it doesn't fill in.

IMO, in the short term the non-iPod market will be much simpler to encroach on than the iPod one. Yet, given time and Microsoft's endless pockets, we eventually see a change in the long run.

Re:divided sales

"For all we know, the numbers are 70% Apple, 9% Zune, 8.99% SanDisk."

You're close. According to this Seattle PI article [nwsource.com], in unit sales it was iPod 63%, Zune 9%. In dollar share, it was iPod 72%, Zune 13%. No numbers are given for Sandisk.

Re:divided sales

Indeed.

In fact, when I posted this comment there were 10 iPod moddels in the overall top 25 (not just electronics) and no Zune. Certainly this changes regularly, but come on... There are even 2 other players in that first page list. The black Zune doesn't even show up until the third page (63). You have to look up the others directly...
Brown 285, and White 484

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=209024&op=Repl y&threshold=3&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=170441 34 [slashdot.org]

The real story here is that someone is buying the brown one. ;P

But seriously, maybe it's selling well, but only if you count the first day sales (and not too many more days) does it compete with an iPod.

Re:divided sales

Damn, post *then* drink.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/5 1549011/ref=pd_ts_pg_1/103-5417193-5657455?ie=UTF8 &pg=1 [amazon.com]

Re:divided sales

"The real story here is that someone is buying the brown one. ;P"

Camoflage when the drop down an airliner's toilet?

Re:divided sales

Well, if you read the fine print of the article you notice some interesting things. First, they say it's the #2 player in it's first four days of sales, not the first week. Since you'd expect sales to be highest on the first day the product is released and then to decrease from there as pent-up demand is met, I'd imagine that a full week's worth of sales data would show the Zune performing more poorly.

Also, that's just one company's data. The article goes on to say, "Another research agency, Current Analysis, reported a somewhat similar sales reading during the same week. For the same week ending November 18, 2006, the Zune took 7 percent of the MP3 player market, falling behind both Apple and Sandisk.". So other statistics suggest that the Zune may only have been able to hit the #3 spot in the first week of sales. Again, this is going up against models that have been out for some time.

But the really important thing to keep in mind is who we're dealing with and their original goal. These would be good sales for a new company, but for an established behemoth with the clout of Microsoft, and given their goal of producing an "iPod killer", this is a pretty lame showing. If anybody is being fanboyish here, it's people who are saying that not doing quite as horrifically awful as people predicted is some kind of victory for Microsoft. Not to say that you can count Microsoft out; they'll doubtless release improved versions. But first impressions count for a lot, as Apple learned that the hard way with Newton. Although Apple eventually produced a good PDA, the Newton never recovered from the bad press and bad reviews that the initial, not-ready-for-prime-time models received.

Re:divided sales

They're also missing the fact that a lot of clueless parents are going to be buying these for their kids for xmas and then are going to be returning them AFTER xmas for an iPod.

As the saying goes...

There is a sucker born every minute ...

Re:As the saying goes...

In related news, 63,000 Microsoft employees returned their Zunes to the company store, saying, "I'll work for Microsoft, but there's a limit to how much torture I'll take."

I thought I would point out

That a RECORD PLAYER [amazon.com] is over a dozen places higher in the list than the top selling Zune.

Thanks! I can finally pirate my records!

In all seriousness that's actually a great gift for someone with an old record collection which is pretty much everyone over 40 or 50.

Re:Thanks! I can finally pirate my records!

I'm pretty sure the GP was referring to the other kind of DJ.

You know, the "throw your hands in the air" type who mixes, scratches, and crossfades?

Not the one who spun "The Chicken Dance" at your cousin's wedding.

Bad Coding

In all seriousness that's actually a great gift for someone with an old record collection which is pretty much everyone over 40 or 50.

How many people do you think falls into the category of being over 50 but not 40?

Re:I thought I would point out

How about the fact that an apple sleeve accessory [amazon.com] is destroying it by over 30 slots?

Re:I thought I would point out

MUCH warmer.

"Warmer" is a code word for "distorted". You may like the effect of the distortion -- but it's still distortion, and not the way the sound is intended to be heard. See also: tube amps.

Re:I thought I would point out

NO, it's not. Warmer means the entire wave is present, not just a sample of it.

Light reading for when you wish to learn more and stop babbling stupid stuff: Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem [wikipedia.org]. When reading, keep in mind that it is a theorem, not a theory. For all practical matters, it is mathematically proven, and states that: "Exact reconstruction of a continuous-time baseband signal from its samples is possible if the signal is band limited and the sampling frequency is greater than twice the signal bandwidth."

I'll add it is not only possible, but in practice extremely easy for the [0-20Khz] range, given the current state of electronics.

No matter how you put it...

Someone will always come back and refute you.

That's the nature of statistics.

And fanboys.

What other competition?

I am a touch surprised that it beat out sandisk, since sandisk sells more at amazon.

It didn't

After the first week boost, the Zune feel rapidly while the Sandisk stayed where it was - right in the middle of the iPods in the top fifteen or so MP3 players.

Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl

Apple's music store has DRM, but there isn't any anywhere else. The Zune adds DRM to your un-DRMed songs for you. Plus the music industry royalty, that they're now pressuring Apple to add. Seems like a definite step backward.

Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl

While I agree in principle with you, iPods are designed to be used as portable audio players. Being able to use them as an external drive is a bonus, not an advertised feature. On the other hand, the blank CD tax in Canada is truly unfair, because blank media is designed to be used in a large number of ways, NOT just audio. I think of the last 200 CDs I've burned, about five were audio (and MP3 CDs at that, which is a data disc on a technicality). Since finding that old cassette adapter that I plug into my iPod, I've had no need for audio CDs.

And for the sake of Devil's Advocate, you should (by the industry's logic) be forced to pay a royalty for using your iPod as a portable drive for your camera. Not for the music, but for the painfully high chance that you've snapped a shot that included something copyrighted... basically anything with a backdrop other than a landscape (ads plastered everywhere, any branded products, etc). Just like the painfully high chance you infringed copyright of (not stole... they still have their copy!) music, right?

Don't get me wrong. The idea sucks, and is downright offensive to almost everyone who actually buys music. But a piracy tax on iPods DOES make more sense than blank media taxes, simply due to intended use. As far as I'm concerned, Apple shouldn't have to pay them a cent as long as they keep the "Don't steal music." sticker on the front (nor should any other brand). As far as I'm concerned, such a tax legitimizes piracy - a Slashdot post I read earlier today indicated that this logic held up in Canadian court. I'd be all for the idea if I didn't know that the logic couldn't possibly hold up in a court system as screwed up as our (US) own.

Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl

If I thought a piracy tax would end all other forms of litigation and DRM from the RIAA,
I might give it some credence, but we all know it won't. They want it both ways.

Maxim

Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl

Normally I would agree with you .. it would be nice for Apple to have pressure to do new better stuff with their ipod besides make it smaller and redder. But, and this pains me to say, in this case Apple seems to have actually done good with their dictatorship (it pains me to say dictatorships are good, rather than saying something bad about Apple).

See the related ./ stories, but because M$ caved into Universal, it's now causing issues for Apple. Apple was the only company willing to fight for a flat rate for the consumer and make it work. If it weren't for Apple's iTunes store, buying music onlne would still really suck.

And no, I don't like DRM'd crap, but I do like our environment better, and don't care to pollute it with more CDs that I'm just going to rip. Would I rather just because to get plain MP3s. Yeah, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon. From personal experience, Apple's DRM is pretty decent, and only got in the way once, where I had to deauthorize all my computers.

So in this case, competition actually isn't looking good for consumer's rights, primarily because most consumers buying these things aren't well informed.

Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl

See the related ./ stories, but because M$ caved into Universal...

Microsoft didn't "cave" to Universal. To "cave" implies resistance. Microsoft and Universal have always been on the same page.

Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl

The situation with Zune/iPod is no different than the situation with Office/ODF. *More* real choices = better for the consumer and lower prices by all! We need a serious challenger to Apple for no other reason than to force them to cross that final frontier - playing nicely with everyone else (i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM).

Seriously wtf are you smoking? The Zune has DRM that is way more restrictive than the iPod. Songs that expire? Your own bands music that can be splooged (or whatever they call it) to somebody wirelessly but they can't keep it and it expires after they listen to it 3 times?

How you can compare the DRM infested Zune with ODF is beyond me. One is an open document specification that could enable people on different OS, hardware, or software to exchange files, the other is a closed platform music player with DRM so restrictive that your entire music collection can auto-delete itself because you forgot to pay your monthly bill...

Apple has real competition already

Apple has had some good competition already - the Archos players, the Creative stuff and the Sandisk. Each of those has brought something interesting to the table and made Apple keep advancing.

What has the Zune brought that's new? WiFi sharing that is so limited it does not exist, and the standard now that EVERY MP3 player going forward will be pressed by labels to pay a small fee just for the right to exist! Has the existance of the Zune REALLY improved the market in any way?

Competition is great, but Microsoft left the door wide open for the RIAA to get a foot in. For that alone they deserve endless scorn and market failure.

The #1 reason to hate the Zune

There is a very simple reason to both avoid purchase of the Zune and pray to 42 that it fails. For every Zune sale, the record industry gets a cut. If you buy a Zune, you are propping up the RIAA. You are essentially paying a tax that assumes you are guilty of copyright infringement before you've even committed it (and of course you could get still get sued by the RIAA even after paying the absurd tax). This should sound familiar to Canadians.

Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl

"i.e., not forcing their product chain down our throats with restrictive DRM)"

As other have pointed out one billion times, Apple doesn't force restrictive DRM on anyone. You can use your iTunes and iPod without one illegal, low quality, DRM'd file.
Not one. I can buy 1000 CD's from my local music store, RIP them, and have iTunes synch them to my iPod und DRM'd, legally (unlike the Zune's software counterpart).

If you wish to purchase songs legally for download via the internets, iTunes not only has a far more sane DRM scheme than almost all others, but I've never fealt restricted by it. Not one bit. I can burn CD's, copy them to other computers (5 a year... do you need to reasonably have them on more?), and can even RIP those burned CD's to produce non-DRM'd iTunes purchased songs.

I have no idea why people still claim this.

Re:I don't know why people want it to fail so badl

Yes, I agree. The equivalent iPod is now $50 cheaper thanks to the Zune. I also think that indicates that Apple considers the Zune to be a far greater threat than their fanboys will admit, or Apple would not need to drop the price to remain competitive.

that would be an interesting point if it weren't completely wrong. apple dropped the price of the ipods before microsoft even announced the price structure for the zune. in fact, microsoft had to delay the announcement of the zune's price so they could have an internal meeting to decide how to react to the price drop of the equivalent ipod. the 30Gb iPod has been $249 for about a month and a half and the zune was just released last week.

Returns

They haven't accounted for returns though ;-)

Raises the question

Microsoft's newest MP3 player, which launched just over two weeks ago, took second place in the portable digital player market in its first four days of sales, according to numbers generated by the market research firm NPD Group.

Who took first place & why couldn't MS beat them?

IMO, it isn't exactly fair to compare "Zune" with "ALL of the iPods".
The Zune targets one small slice of territory that Apple has already staked out.

Not there yet

Personally I believe the WiFi feature will be a difference-maker, but as currently implemented on the Zune it isn't very enticing. I expect MS to come out with a software update in 6 months or so that will dramatically improve the wireless functionality. I used the early Smartphones and they had similar rough edges - they were clunky and missing many "obvious" features. But MS kept plugging along and now they have a very competitive phone operating system. With their resources and long-term view I figure they will ultimately make the Zune a formidible competitor to the iPod franchise. We also should remember that it's still early yet in this game. Portable media players only last about 3-4 years, so we haven't even really seen the first big replacement wave yet.

It's a difference maker alright -WiFi Audio Sizzle

...but not the way you were thinking. In fact what the WiFi gets you besides the ability to music in a very limited manner, is the "WiFi Sizzle" [cnet.com] - a delightful crackle overlaid on your music while WiFi is enabled.

Who's the "fanboy"?

"Despite the iFanboy jabber"

Did anybody else stop reading after that?

Retail Only

Since the numbers are from big box retailers only, they are pretty skewed. No online (no store.apple.com, Amazon, etc), probably not Apple's retail stores either.

Considering the initial curiosity factor and Microsoft employees, I would have expected the initial uptake to have a bigger impact than even this. If they are starting at this low of a baseline... lets just say Creative and SanDisk probably don't have much to worry about.

I personally don't care

They can do whatever they want. I won't buy it, and it doesn't harm me

Wait, huh? Oh crap, I forgot. Microsoft's "we'll-pay-you-an-'all-our-users-are-thieves'-tax" shenanigans are setting "precedent". Now, everyone else (Apple) is "encouraged" to do the same...

Damn...

irrelevant

I apologise for feeding this troll of an article, but nevertheless.

Certainly there was some base of people who wanted (some later to be usefull) wi-fi plus an FM receiver plus video at that price point. Microsoft advertized enough that these people knew about it, so they got it when they first had their chance. That group of people, however, is not particularly related to digital music player buyers as a whole, as it is only continuous purchases over its life span that will be untimately meaningful. Furthermore, this week was singled out from the Zune being the only new thing on the market. That they only got second when they were the only new thing around--for over a month or something?--is actually rather sad.

A more representative week would be, say, the week after Thanksgiving, which shows a lot about retail buying habits (and is a significant percentage of such).

Hypocrite

You won't comment on this "totally unbiased" article, but you have no problem commenting [slashdot.org] on another "totally unbiased" article called "How iPods Took Over the World" [slashdot.org], huh? Why is that?

#2 First Week != #2 overall

It's a new gadget and it was hyped to the extreme. Obviously it';s going to sell well. The sad thing is the new product buzz didn't stop people from buying "old" iPods at a FAR larger rate. And the study doesn't even include iPods sold in Apple Stores, which is a huge bias. Look at where the Zune is now. It's nowhere. Nice try, but the numbers don't mean a damn thing unless they're sustainable.

Amazon sales figures DID match

The first week, the Zune was indeed in the top ten at Amazon - it's only after that the sales dropped like a rock to the current place below 50th. So what the article is saying is not inconsistent with what was observed from Amazon sales rank.

So the article is only telling us what we already knew from reviewing Amazon sales - sales were good the first week, when the media blitz worked but before word of mouth cooled opinion.

Its all downhill from the first week.

"#2 Digital Audio player in its first week of sales" Its only the first week. Products usually post their strongest numbers when they launch. Let's see their numbers after 1 year of sales.

Never a doubt that Zune would be number 2

Its just that Microsoft had to trample over the battered bodies of their "plays for sure" partners to get there.

Zune not advertised as MS product?

I've seen a lot of Zune ads. None of them mention Microsoft at all. Anywhere. I wonder if this is MS admitting that they have no mindshare. Or maybe the "cool" factor doesn't go with their corporate logo.

MS blew it

Microsoft has enough employees who will have to buy their crappy product (to show company spirit) to stay in the top 3 for at least another two weeks. And then it's over.
Apple wasn't the first out to market with an mp3 player but unlike MS they did their research. Every new generation of Ipod gets better its interface is extremely easy to learn and use. Itunes is not bad and I went out and bought 5th gen video ipod just because of how easy it is to subscribe to podcasts (G4, SG, etc) and ease of keeping everything in sync.
I purchased the very second mp3 player that became commercially available in USA - Diamond Rio PMP300 in 1998 and Creative Lab's Nomad ][ a little bit later. Both were not great and the first suffered from slow transfer speed and second from just-ok interface but at least both products worked out of the box and I didn't have to wait a year for some feature that was promised to start working - NO wireless sync with PC(even my old motorola e680i phone can do this via bluetooth), crippled song "sharing" and no Vista support YET even though Vista is shipping in a month to PC manufacturers. Very rushed - feels like a pot-luck dinner.
Finally, I think MS blew it because they are a software company first and they couldn't even write (OR STEAL) something decent. They only had 10 year to sit there and watch everyone else do it. I feel bad for Toshiba, they didn't really need this.
I guess they didn't learn from Panasonic's 3DO fiasco where Trip Hawking tricked them into giving his company $100 million to blow on a video game system that didn't sell well.

Waiting for the T-Shirt

"All I got for Xmas was a Brown Zune"

A new tag suggestion - "zuneral"

Let us all help the band play merrily along while the Zune ship slides into the murky waters of consumer disinterest, by labeling this and all subsequent Zune trolling articles with the flag "zuneral".

Re:I bet the don't look at the Apple retail stores

So do they also skip the Apple Store? You can makeany numbers you want if you ask the "correct" set of stores for their sales data.

in other news, the zune debuts as the #1 music player in the microsoft campus employee store. the three zunes sweep the top three spots followed by employee-discounted versions of Xbox360 mousepads and visualstudio baseball caps.

The favourite recipe of talentless journalists

1. Take any common conception.
2. Create an article which suggests that the opposite of your chosen conception is actually true.
3. Reference and quote from any research which supports your argument, regardless of its lack of validity or corroboration.
4. If no supporting research exists, justify your argument using pseudoreasoning instead.
5. Optionally insert some unfounded predictions.
6. Insert a generous number of advertisements.
7. Bathe in your inflated sense of self-esteem.

lol

the Amazon sales rank may have been thrown off by Zune sales being divided between the three colors.

You mean, like the iPod sales being divided between 14 or so models and colours?

Yes, the zune's initial week was fairly good. If you read just a little further on any mainstream press article, however, you'll see that the total failure was attributed not to first week sales, but to the fact that after all the fanboys and easy-to-fool idiots had bought one, sales dropped to almost nothing. The same Amazon sales rank that was #2 in the first week was #13 in the second if I recall correctly. Right now, it's #60 [amazon.com], which definitely qualifies as "abysmal". The 4 GB silver nano [amazon.com], the lowest listed iPod model, beats it jumping on one leg with both hands tied behind its back (rank #15).

Sorry, MS fanboy, zune is as dead as a doornail and twice as hard to sell.

Reports be damned

My day job has me working retail, and I'll have to say that the iPods are running circles around the zune. We've sold 1 zune since the first shipment came in and we've already gone through about 40 ipods. I DON'T think Apple has anything to worry about.

Re:What can brown do for you

If you want a decent player, get a Cowon A2, X5, etc. They use Linux and play it all.

Oh please. If I'm buying a music player, there are a few considerations:
Does it sound good?
Is it easy to navigate?
Can I transfer music realtively easily?

I don't give a tiny rats ass whether it's Linux or MS or Apple or some other dude. I don't care. And the unwashed masses buying these things care even less than I do.

Re:What can brown do for you

Yeah...

As long as it comes with BASH. Navigation made simple and intuitive.

I doubt it

"Zune is basically going to pretty much kill off all non-iPod players"

Not likely. Despite the title of the article, go take a look at the actual sales rank of the MS-Zune players on Amazon. The black is #52, the rest are significantly below that (greater than 250). Sansa has a player in the top 10, and a 2nd one at number 11, Creative has a player in the top 20, Sansa has a couple more scattered around the top 100. Apple has players everywhere on this list. Everywhere.

Again, I urge folks to look at the actual Amazon site instead of reading articles about Amazon.

Here's the link:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/5 1549011/ref=pd_ts_pg_1/002-1687820-0216019?ie=UTF8 &pg=1 [amazon.com]

Keeping in mind that the holiday is when a big portion of sales, unless MS drops the Zune prices down by about 40%, this this is headed for the bottom pretty quickly. While that's obviously my opinion, all you need to do is watch the trend of the player. Just the novelty of this thing should have kept it in the top 10 until xmas. But to fall to #52 in just a week is pretty amazing.