Huge iPod Numbers

Some of the biggest news out of Steve Jobs' keynote today at MacWorld was just how many iPods the company sold during the fourth quarter. The 14 million number exceeded industry estimates. Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray stated it best in a Bloomberg.com article when he said, "The iPod number was shocking." At the San Francisco Chronicle, Munster added "The whisper number on Wall Street (for iPods) was 11 million."

David Card JupiterResearch wrote:

Jupiter will probably have to raise its MP3 player forecast. Our US music download revenue forecast for 2005 of $550M is looking perhaps 15% low. Songs per device is holding steady at 20, so our long-term forecast assumptions look solid. Oh, and 8M videos sold. Since everyone who had a video iPod -- and some who didn't -- probably tried it out, I'm not blown away by that last figure.

Probably pretty accurate observation about iTunes videos, but then again it's 8 million more than the industry WOULD have sold so that must count for something...